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Brown, Edmund Woodward. 
The divine indwelling 


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THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


BY 


E. WOODWARD BROWN 


AUTHOR OF ‘‘LIFE IN SOCIETY.” 


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FEB 14 1919 

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“To whom God would make known what is 
the riches of the glory of this mystery, Christ 
in you the hope of glory.” 


FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 
New York CHICAGO TORONTO 


Publishers of Evangelical Literature 


Copyright, 1895, by 
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY. 


CONTENTS. 


E: 


THE DIVINE SIDE. OF THE. INDWELLING; 


CHAPTER PAGE 
Tepe ENE RAL LV LEW ae ee eee te ee hg Pate eee II 

II, THE CHARACTER OF THE INDWELLING....... 17 
III. THE INDWELLING POSITIVE AND MARKED.... 24 
Ve SUN DIVIDUALITVAIN y THis WORKS tu oe at 29 
WV OELRIT UALS oLE He cuetittaera mak lice dace ae) camer, a7 
Wit LE SOLVING RENEWALS 20 eR ated tierra 46 
et Pe ROW EH EUNS CRACK (a0 a, valine Mater fe pres 54 
MEL Tey DIVINE .ILEUMINATION. 7... soesihscn 60 
EXSSEHEVSUBJECTS OF ILLUMINATION «<0. 00. 4 69 
X. THE CHARACTERISTICS OF ILLUMINATION..... 74 
SURDIVINE: GUIDANCE... snes, 80 
POLI tEEL Poe TO UIDANCE. «2 es) bau te ee 90 
XU THE INDWELLING MAKES’ FREE...;......... 98 
Belov tC OD INA TS: COMPORTS oe eos an) ead a 110 
Pov eet CDJIN OUR: ORDINARY -LifEim «| gous ea I2I 
men END WELLINGLACHIELP TO. PLAY eon nes 1277 
Pelee LHC INDWELLING A-BODILY ELELPon. 9-45) 134 
BVILT THEO INDWELLING FOREVER: .0~. Aico. do ese 140 
DI Mee VERLASTING LIFE A’ GROWTH )..... 0.0.0... 146 


7 


8 CONTENTS 


Li; 


THE HUMAN SIDE OF THE INDWELLING. 


CHAPTER PAGE 
XX. THE BELIEVING LIFES. ¢.e a2). eee 155 
XXI.-A Goon LIFE. 3.654 2. Gat pe 164 
XALT, A LOVING LIFES. 0.320 Tale eo ee i177 
XXII. CHRISTIAN HOPE. 24 03 5 oh ee 192 
XX1Ve PATIENCE. 005 sys alk Gs ab ale ete ee 200 
XXV. FELLOWSHIP WITH°GOD = 9.3 eee 208 
XXXVI. FELLOWSHIP WITH OTHERS 3) .n2.) | ore 215 
XXVIL.UA-LIRE OF PRAYER Ga ee 224 
XXVIII. A LIFE OF PRAISE 2. 254m) oats ee ee > 233 
XXIX.. CHRISTIAN. COURAGE “c.f 50 52 sais eee 242 
XXX. CHRISTIAN UTTERANCE:. <5. aves oc mene 252 
XXX], CHRISTIAN SERVICE: 323, scree 3 he ae 259 
MOXUXLL. CHRISTIAN, SUCCESS. .6 42.45 Ge > ku een 269 
MAU TOY INNGOD ©) nee eal ee ee A een eee 
MEX LV, 1. PEACE IN? GOD 435) 2 oases. cits 2 bate 293 
MAX Ve GLORIFICATION) cits; saidicte fam ose eo eee 306 


AA AVL; PE CONCLUSION fc ate 5g Gives te ici a a dar 310 


THE DIVINE SIDE OF INDWELLING. 


CHAPTER: 1. 
A GENERAL VIEW. 


ONLY in a relative sense are we to understand 
that ‘‘the Holy Ghost was not given until after 
Jesus was glorified.” Before Pentecost his pres- 
ence was not so universal, so permanent, so pow- 
erful as now; but there were spiritual lives, there 
were prophets and revelations, miracles and en- 
dowments then. Yet now the sphere is greater ; 
the light, the power, the consolation are greater; 
faith, love, joy, and peace are greater; privi- 
leges are greater—this in extent, in permanency 
and power. Old Testament prophets continually 
speak of the day transcending theirs; but there 
has ever been a measure of the Spirit, even the 
“ Light which lighteth every man that cometh into 
the world.” From the beginning it was meant, 
and ever it has been endeavored, that God should 
be especially with man—in whom earthly creative 
work has reached its goal, in whom nature is 
united to spirit and earth to heaven—and it is 
only because of his fall and his sin that he has 
not been “ filled with all the fullness of God.” 


II 


12 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


So, then, we may have a life full of God’s gov- 
erning and helpful presence. This was the life 
of Abraham, the life of Moses, the life of the pro- 
phets. This was the life of Jesus. He had con- 
stant thought of the Father’s presence, constant 
support in it. He is the most illustrious example 
of this life. At his baptism “the heavens were 
opened, and the Holy Ghost descended upon him 
in bodily shape as a dove.”” The Spirit gave him 
guidance: “Being full of the Holy Ghost,” he 
was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, and re- 
turned “in the power of the Spirit into Galilee.” 
The Spirit gave him consolation: there were 
depths and extremities in his trial that demanded 
for him help; and God, who works everywhere 
with his own—their comforter—worked now and 
here with his Son. The Spirit also gave that 
boldness, supported by an inward witness to 
truth and right; that independence of all illegal 
ecclesiasticism, all unrighteous public opinion, all 
unwise private advice, the Saviour had. The 
Spirit also gave the knowledge, the wisdom, and 
the utterance: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon 
me,’ read Jesus, ‘‘and he hath anointed me to 
preach the gospel.” The Spirit, too, gave the 
vision of the triumph, this perhaps in some hour 
of sadness, and Jesus exclaimed, “I beheld Satan © 
fall as lightning from heaven.” And the Spirit 
gave him power to conquer death, for the Spirit 


A GENERAL VIEW 13 


kept the holy body unsoiled and in its integrity ; 
then quickened and upraised it ; for we read, “ Put 
to death in the flesh, but quickened in the Spirit.” 

Jesus, the example of all Christian graces and 
glories, is, in this union of the Spirit with him- 
self, our forerunner. The process in him re- 
peats itself in those that are his. Do we not 
read: “Abide in me, and Iin you;”’ “ He dwell- 
eth with you, and shall be in you;” “Ye are 
not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be the 
Spirit of God dwell in you”’? Paul says: “ The 
Holy Spirit dwelleth in us; ”’ and John: “ Greater 
is he that is in me than he that is in the world; ”’ 
and Peter: “ By the promises we are made par- 
takers of the divine nature.” We also read: 
“Know ye not that the Holy Ghost is in you, 
except you be reprobates?”” When Jesus said, 
“Tam the vine, ye are the branches,” he saw the 
vine of life, the eternal stock below the branches 
and before the fruit, steadily sending vigor into 
brittle tendril and tough branch, into green grape 
and ripening fruit. Do we not read: “ Be filled 
with the Spirit,” and, ‘‘ That Christ may dwell in 
your hearts by faith,” and, also, “ That ye might 
be filled with all the fullness of God,” and again, 
‘Of his fullness have all we received’? 

This indwelling is as possible for all as is the air 
that speeds over the earth, pervades every place, 
sweeps round and round all things; this when 


14. THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


over the sea and across the mountain and over 
the valley ; this when filling all broad, free spaces, 
all far-spreading distances. This indwelling Spirit 
is as possible for all as is the sun; no particularity, 
no exclusiveness, no unfairness in dealing with 
any; never and in no circumstances out of reach 
of any. The promise is, “ Whosoever.” The eift 
is, “ The Holy Spirit to them that ask.” Not an 
animal, not the smallest of the Infusoria, but has 
the power to open and close its mouth to receive 
or reject food—the power to do this at pleasure. 
So not a man but can receive God. 

That God is for his own we all know. He calls 
them by their names, he numbers the very hairs 
of their heads, he puts their tears in his bottle, he 
counts their sighs and watches their steps. But 
he is also zz his own: drawing and bending and 
softening; indispensable and inseparable. His 
are the grace of the new birth and all the sweet 
spiritual life. His are the guidance and the com- 
fort his own receive; his their liberty, their seal- 
ing and witness, in all the calm, the joy, and the 
power. His are their adoration and praise, their 
confessions and intercessions. Hjs are those 
hymns and doxologies that prelude the worship 
of the angels and of the spirits of the just. He 
was the inspiration of the prophets and apostles. 
His are the planting and training, the guiding and 
guarding of the church. His js grace, in all its 


A GENERAL VIEW 15 


mighty words and laws, its mighty ordinances 
and works. 

We may walk along this avenue of the garden 
of our Eden, look a little at the vista down and 
beyond, and glance also over the sward and the 
flowers on either hand as we go. It is a place of 
waters and fruits and good company. Many in 
it are the sacred things of courage and consolation 
and hope. Ai river of life flows beside each be- 
liever’s path, the river of life from the throne of 
God. Every one may drink of the creative and 
recreative water; every one does who repents of 
sin, lives in faith, and walks in light. The tree 
of life that stands in the paradise of God, bearing 
twelve manner of fruits, bears them for the people 
of God, and its leaves are for the healing of the 
nations. At this living tree ours need not be a 
stranger’s look, one over the fence, but an owner’s 
look, a straight, appropriating, and satisfying look. 

Through this gate we enter as never elsewhere 
into the wonders of God. This union is the foun- 
dation, broad and strong, of the church; beneath 
the whole and supporting the whole is the Rock, 
the living Rock on which the living stones are 
set, and filling the whole with glorious life. 

Nothing so royal as this union, nothing so 
sacred, nothing such a note of distinction, 
nothing anywhere by which God communicates 
so much of himself. In all his dealings with 


16 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


his people he gives the first place to the Spirit’s 
presence—this received by faith. Here is the 
secret and power of a new life, the root and 
trunk. For long might we be asking questions 
and learning of the Lord and his Word. We 
might muse long and lie awake through very 
delight of this teaching. In the fact we are even 
entered into our highest glory and blessedness. 
There is a fascination in going round and round 
this—God present with us, and with distinguish- 
ing gifts. Dear indeed is the fact to his people 
in all their working and warring and suffering ; 
much is it brought out in hymns and prayers and 
confessions—that God will seek and find and fill 
us in “the exceeding greatness of his power to 
usward who believe.”’ 

Thus have we taken a run out here and there 
and glanced about in this strange, wonderful, and 
delightful city of God, into which it has been our 
hap this day to enter, a few strains of the blessed 
music to hear, the golden gates being left a little 
open. This putting of himself by our Lord into 
his people, his very thought and spirit and self 
into them, hallows and ennobles them; and as 
the morning sun fills the earth with brightness, so 
fills them with hope and gladness. May ours be 
this “life hid with Christ in God.” O Lord, may 
something of all this great glory be ours. Amen. 


EAE tere ty 
THE CHARACTER OF THE INDWELLING. 


THAT Spirit which is everywhere in the uni- 
verse, the Spirit of creation, is especially manifest 
in intelligences, and still more especially manifest 
in those who are called the sons of God; manifest 
more or less directly, more or less imperfectly, 
but yet manifest. The manifestation has certain 
well-defined characteristics. 

The Spirit in us is secret; is in depths and si- 
lences. His working is like the working of cohe- 
sion and chemical affinity, of heat and electricity, 
forces without sight or sound. His influence is 
like certain decisive influences of society, subtile 
and not felt. He is like the wind, which is 
viewless, scentless, tasteless, and often soundless. 
“ Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it 
not,” said Jacob. So God is often hidden when 
at work upon a human soul, awakening, convict- 
ing, converting; a good work going on and not 
known to bea divine working. God’s indwelling 
is hidden behind second causes. His real pres- 
ence with his own may be easily overlooked; 

17 


18 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


depends, in the perception of it, upon spiritual 
delicacy, sensitiveness, faith. It may easily seem 
but the creation of poetic imagination, or’but that - 
idealism which out of what we lack furnishes what 
we want. It may easily seem to us, tired, sick, 
or sorrowing, but the glorious creation of the wish 
it wereso. The vital movements, mysterious and 
obscure, are perceived only by the studious, 

The Spirit’s work within is usually gentle and 
delicate; is made only in the responsive and 
sympathetic soul, as we make precious communi- 
cations only to those who value them. Not only 
unperceived, but very gently, occurs the making 
the leaf green; the flower red or yellow or blue; 
the sour fruit sweet. There is no greater sign of 
God than spring, no greater wonder for man, 
when sick at heart for the length, the desolation 
and oppression of the winter; we are now borne 
on the rolling earth into a warmer climate ; a new 
world is revealed to us, the world of grass and 
flowers, of leafing trees and myriad life, a whole 
fair earth of woodland and grass-land. It isa 
great revelation, but very quietly is it made. A 
few weeks of still or stormy weather do it all. So 
usually the precious communications of God come 
gently—renewal, consolation, guidance. Only to 
certain simple believing ones did Christ appear 
after his resurrection. 

The divine manifestation is also mysterious. 


THE CHARACTER OF THE INDWELLING 19 


The great all-surrounding God begins to affect a 
person; how and why in this manner or in that 
manner, we hardly know. It often seems as with- 
out reason as the movement of the clouds in their 
sweep over valley and plain, over lake and slope; 
as the air-currents so irregular in time, in force, 
in direction; as the winds that blow when they 
please, where they please, as much as they please. 
The workings of the Holy Ghost are not without 
law, not without reason and cause, but they are 
mysterious. 

Again, the work within is thorough. Water 
goes down into the soil, enters each one of the 
infinitesimal rootlets, goes by these thousand ways 
into the stalk, exhales into the air, and returns 
again to the ground. So the Spirit goes down 
and in and on, and gets to all cells and germs. 
He enters body and soul, and opens wide the 
heavenly gates to entrance free for every one, 
with all that properly belongs to him. He 
reaches to obstinacy, to perverseness, to penu- 
riousness; to every sin and every sorrow, and 
even every fret and perplexity. He cleanses, he 
soothes, he heals. 

So also the divine indwelling refreshes. The 
soil takes in the warmth of the sun, the breath of 
the air, but that which most helps life is water. 
The housewife watches in the dooryard the wa- 
tered plant; it pushes its way upward through 


20 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


earth and mold, through leaves and netted roots, 
through all that is decaying or dead, and ends a 
living, graceful thing. Water freshens the tree 
in root and bark, in sap, foliage, and fruit. Plains 
and valleys, fields and all fertile places owe their 
fertility largely to the dews and rains, to the 
watercourses beneath and around. The waters 
of the Nile, in what they bear and what they do, 
make possible in the desert growing grain, groups 
of palms, bleating flocks and lowing herds, a 
thousand forms of life; a strip from the Abyssin- 
ian mountains to the Mediterranean, across the 
death and nothingness of the vast and silent 
Sahara. Says the prophet: “ And it shall be in 
that day, that living waters shall go out from 
Jerusalem.” And he goes on to tell how full 
they are, how refreshing and salubrious, how 
wide and far they shall extend. So the Spirit re- 
freshes. He gives increase of faith, increase of 
hope, increase of love, new zeal for the Word, 
new zeal for the work. Isaac dug wells of re- 
freshment, and it is set down to his praise; Jacob 
dug a well that handed down his name a thou- 
sand years. But Christ can give to each to have 
within “ a well of water springing up into everlast- 
ing life.’’ Christ within gives a perennial fresh- 
ness of thought and feeling. Scripture says, “I 
will run the way of thy commandments, when 
thou shalt enlarge my heart.” I shall be free 


THE CHARACTER OF THE INDWELLING 21 


from that which impedes me, hampers me; I 
shall go fast, I shall run. And again Scripture 
says, ‘“ They shall mount up with wings as eagles.” 
They shall be so refreshed as to seem to be able 
to fly; they shall have the spirit to fly, to break 
away from that which holds them down, that 
which holds them in; they shall rise above their 
depressing circumstances, their depressing mis- 
eries, their snares, all that can really hurt them. 
The wings, the wings of God shall carry them 
gloriously upward and onward. The inspiration 
of the Spirit shall cause them to rise above an- 
noyances and all hindrances. They never creep, 
at times they do not walk or even run—they fly ; 
the earth is under their feet—they soar above the 
mist and the storm. 

The Spirit in his ministrations is abounding. 
As water pours out on every side from the over- 
filled vessel and seeks to run everywhere, so the 
Spirit multiplies his influences on every hand and 
in every soul. There is a spring, a well: it taps 
the subterranean waters, which rise toward the 
surface, sometimes quietly and sometimes with 
force and volume. There is a stream: it creeps 
and turns, now narrows and then broadens; it 
flows slowly or swiftly, rolling over stones and 
pebbles and sand, bearing sticks and leaves and 
logs, depositing its little burdens here and there, 
but ever going on and out and beyond; spread- 


22 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


ing, deepening, moving toward the ocean. There 
is a river: steadily it runs, day and night, week 
and month, in broad and full channel, carrying 
the united waters of the thousand little streams 
that are among the hills; carrying the rainfall of 
a large territory. So works the Spirit, as a pure 
river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding 
out of the throne of God and the Lamb. There, 
too, is the sea: very wide and very deep; the 
constant movement, the multitudinous waves; the 
sea that stretches so far away—a whole so great 
that across its miles and along its years the imag- 
ination fails to go. So large is the grace of God. 
We read, “ The chariots of God are twenty thou- 
sand, even thousands of angels.” There is no 
lack with him. There are no poor in his king- 
dom. “For unto every one that hath shall be 
given, and he shall have more abundantly.” 
There is no need. There is ‘abundance jof 
peace,” “abundance of grace,’ abundance of 
promises, abundance of performances. 

This pouring forth of the Spirit makes the re- 
cipients to abound in the possession of him and 
of the things that are his. ‘‘ Eat ye that which 
is good and let your soul delight itself with fat- 
ness.’ The Spirit controlling purpose and feel- 
ing, desire and deed, enables a person to be in 
the very healthiest of states, the very best of re- 
lations; to be thriving, advancing, taking in and 


THE CHARACTER OF THE INDWELLING 23 


giving out all that he can. I can hardly say too 
much of the possible largeness of the appropri- 
ation of Christ; of the possible good things in 
having him as the inmost basis of life; of the pos- 
sible riches of salvation when the Spirit of God 
passes into the spirits of men, and that which was 
done in Christ, and has since been done for Christ, 
begins to repeat itself in those who are Christ’s. 


CHATTER 
THE INDWELLING POSITIVE AND MARKED. 


THE earth is endowed with positive power to 
draw back every stone we throw into the air— 
endowed with the force of attraction. Light has 
its manifestation. Heat has its effective power. 
So the divine indwelling in a person has its out- 
going, its manifestation, its flame. A heavy blow 
makes warmth, a heavier blow makes heat, a still 
heavier makes heat and light. The crashing of 
the meteor through the air makes heat and bril- 
liant light. There are many things which cannot 
be hidden, kept concealed, nobody know of their 
existence. The divine indwelling is one of these. 
It is positive power and is sometimes very mani- 
fest. I see the flame filling a pile of brush in the 
clearing and rising insplendor. I look out in the 
evening over the long slope across the lake, and 
see here and there a light shining through spaces 
of air. I go out and view the stars, fires afar. 
I read of the sword-shaped flame at the gates of 
Eden, the burning lamp of Abraham, the burning 
bush of Moses, and all the fiery manifestations of 

24 


THE INDWELLING POSITIVE AND MARKED 25 


the especial divine presence. You cannot hide 
the dome of the stars unless you shut your eyes. 
So you cannot hide him who has God in him. You 
cannot hide the divine grace in its workings. 

Look at the Spirit in convincing of sin: dis- 
quieting, sometimes terrifying a man, taking away 
his old security, isolating him, making him to feel 
alone with God. The influx of the Spirit 1s some- 
thing decidedly real. His world is made mani- 
fest to that soul. The fan that winnows is turn- 
ing, judgment is a reality. The man has been 
admitted to behold God and to behold himself. 
Yes, conviction of sin is a very positive thing; 
and whoever has it is a witness for God. 

Look at Christ in converting. The winter 
sweeps down from the north, the trees drop their 
leaves, multitudes of plants die, much of animal life 
ceases to be, the surface of the earth freezes, snow 
covers the ground. Butachange comes. The soft 
south wind and advancing sun melt the snow, the 
floods of spring break up the ice along the streams, 
the frost comes out of the ground, the warmth 
increases. It is a wonderful work. So regener- 
ation is wonderful, a manifestation of the super- 
natural; the new manner, the unexpected pray- 
ing and praising. You clear a field; you let the 
stumps rot out; you have it bright with green 
grass. Somewhere in that field there likely is an 
oak, strong and thoroughly linked, nowhere thin 


26 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


or ragged, rich in color. Now grandly it swings 
with the wind; and now stately and silent it 
stands; but ever is it a thing of vigor. So is 
a living Christian: vigorous as the orange that 
blossoms and fruits together and through the 
whole season; vigorous as the stately magnolia 
of the South with its great leaves and giant flow- 
ers, avery tree of heaven. He is no longer heavy 
of head and of heart; he is not rigid or languid, 
worn or feeble; he is of the trees of the Lord, full 
of sap—the cedars of Lebanon, which he hath 
planted—so fresh and rejuvenescent, so full of life, 
is he. He puts a life not their own into nature 
and common life. His trend is as evident as 
that of the rocks. He is as easily known as the 
mountain-range. I do not expect him neces- 
sarily to be like the earthquake or the volcano. 
But he is visible, trunk and branch, substance and 
outline. You see that he isa Christian: his duties 
do not burden him, ordinary matters do not chafe 
and distemper him. He is like the lake: now 
tranquil, reflecting the shores, and now driving 
with whitecaps, coloring here and there, chang- 
ing to-day and to-morrow, ever doing. He is a 
revelation of God: ‘‘ Ye are my witnesses, saith 
ENewisord se 

Look at the Christian in his resistance of evil. 
He has feeling, action, opposition, repulsion. You 
expect the atoms of gold or iron or carbon to 


THE INDWELLING POSITIVE AND MARKED 27 


have each kind its own great force, but with its 
own particular attractions and repulsions. So do 
you expect with the Christian. He, like the atom, 
has a fixed constitution, and it is of a very posi- 
tive sort. He attracts this, he repels that. His 
whole soul is open to this, his whole soul is shut 
up to that. It is as when you push a thing away, 
as when one body shoves another body out of its 
place. 

Look at the Christian in his especially Christian 
work. He has steady, persistent force; some- 
times a force as of the massive steel locomotive 
rushing by with its train. He is like the angels, 
who, in the vigor of their joy and love, fly in the 
discharge of their duty. There is the spirit of 
wisdom in leaders, of courage in heroes, of utter- 
ance and boldness in prophets, of goodness in 
saints. 

Look at the Christian in his revivals. As in 
the evening or in the morning the clouds are 
ablaze with color, and all in a moment, so at 
times shines out the Christian. He has a glow 
as of heaven, he is as full of experiences of the 
living God as a Hebrew prophet. The tree puts 
forth new branches and leaves, new bark and 
color. So, through certain returns and enlarge- 
ments of divine influence, the Christian has new 
growth, new visibility. Believers are as precious 
stones, full of light; stones of brightness, that re- 


28 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


flect his glory who is the “Father of lights.” 
Intense and active, playing with color and vary- 
ing with line, they beam and glow and show their 
wells of light. Those stones of fire and shining 
ceaselessly are emblems fair of souls illumined, of 
souls within that light which is over the heaven 
above and the broad earth below. 

He whom God especially enters is a marked 
presence and power; because by outward agen- 
cies and inward processes he receives and makes 
manifest and communicates of enlightenment, 
consolation, and liberty. He belongs to this world 
and also to the final and heavenly world, being 
partaker of the Eternal Spirit. When the prophet 
became a prophet others knew it. When the 
seventy were sent forth the people perceived it. 
When Christ was filled with the Spirit he was a 
man of extraordinary character and work. He 
who receives spiritual influence, personal com- 
munications from God, makes a revelation, a 
peculiar manifestation of the actual Spirit of the 
universe. Heisason of God, a brother of Christ. 
In him is a bursting forth of the living Spirit, a 
bright appearing of the Lord. 


CHARTER hel: 
INDIVIDUALITY IN THE WORK. 


We have named some of the star-groups, the 
constellations, as we call them: the Great Bear, 
Orion, and the Pleiades. We have named a num- 
ber of the stars: the blazing star Arcturus, the 
changing star Algol, the north star Polaris. God 
“calleth them all by their names.””’ How much 
more then does he regard each of us? He says: 
“T know all the fowls of the mountains: and the 
wild beasts of the field.’ How much more then 
is it true, “ Doth not he see my ways and count 
all my steps”? He knew the integrity of David 
and of Hezekiah. He revealed to Elisha what 
Gehazi had done, and the words spoken by the 
king of Israel in his bedchamber. They say that 
the nebulz are of all conceivable shapes: circular, 
ringlike, conelike, snakelike, spiral. So are we 
each his own strange self, but few perfectly alike. 
Now in the full glory of humankind every one 
of us, down to the eleventh magnitude, when stars 

29 


30 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


fade out of sight, is before God as though the 
only one, as the child before its mother. 

Each person is individual to a degree, in his 
constitutional and acquired tendencies. One plant 
is compact, another is loose-jointed; one is up- 
right, another is sprawling; one has roots and 
supports of its own, another clusters with other 
plants; one keeps close to the ground, another 
climbs the lattice, the fence, the tree, laying hold 
and ever getting higher. Here is individuality. 
So nature comes out in grace. One is Paul, an- 
other is James, and another John; each a dis- 
tinct and differing disciple. He who made every 
flower to have its pattern has made every person 
to have his own nature, his own lessons, his own 
work and way. 

Character has its individuality. Granite is rock, 
and so is limestone and so is sandstone; but each 
is distinct. The pearl is a gem, and so the dia- 
mond; but each is of its own type. 

Duty has its individuality. To every man his 
own duty. Each one can contribute something 
to knowledge, to beauty, to use, to the glory of 
creation; something to the happiness of others, 
Generally it is lesser work, but it has its place. 
It may be simple, but in a sense it is vital. 

Experience has its individuality. The heart is 
like a piece of music that sways now with joy and 
now with sadness; that is now a sweet and tender 


INDIVIDUALITY IN THE WORK 31 


melody, now a grand.and massive harmony. And 
as there are various pieces of music so there are 
various experiences. 

Each person has his own place and care, his 
own provision and possession. A river is not as 
the wind, everywhere; not like the tides, all over 
the ocean and along the whole coast: it is a dis- 
tinct stream, within its channel. Now, while God 
is unlimited even beyond the range of thought, 
yet, practically speaking, he is not infinite and 
boundless, nebulous, and dreary to think Olfsmane 
idea of him as working on infinite material for 
an infinite time is rather an abstraction, and 
while the fact is metaphysically possible, it is 
hardly real. He rather has definite purposes to 
accomplish by definite means. He localizes his 
presence—this in the holy angels, in the spirits 
of just men made perfect, and in each particu- 
lar Christian with his own lesser or larger pecu- 
liarities. Notwithstanding the glory of God’s do- 
minion and the majesty of his person, he sees this 
single world, and in it your single self. God does 
not regard us as the great sea regards the shore, 
the innumerable shells and pebbles of which the 
sea is smoothing and rounding, one being very 
much like another, and all being slowly worn to in- 
different sand. Indeed weare by no means before 
him as a shore of sand: the grains minute, not 
noticed, and indistinguishable. We are before 


32 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


him, not in lots and groups, but as persons iso- 
lated, peculiar, distinct. His dealing suits the 
constitution and needs of each one. Daily is he 
nigh with preservative and protective, with educa- 
tive and redeeming care. He who lacks neither 
power nor skill nor will discriminates in just the 
way to meet each case. He thinks and feels as 
to how each child fares, and follows him in life as 
he goes forth to what end he may. He was a 
prophet to Moses, a captain to Joshua, a shepherd 
to David. “He is great in counsel.” He can 
advise us how to manage any business. He is 
wiser than the wisest man. He can advise us how 
to do what is fitting. Each case has its own pecu- 
harities. .Naaman’s had his, the rich young man’s 
had his, Mary’s had hers. 

God's work, his thought, his love, are con- 
nected with you ; his will, his interest, his life, are 
connected with you personally. His power, that 
is so manifest in the simple plant at the roadside, 
in each plot of grass or violets on a bank, can cer- 
tainly be made manifest peculiarly in you. It is 
just as when a person gets acquainted with you, 
likes you, and then has much voluntary compan- 
ionship with you, getting at last to be much with 
you in purpose, in interest, in life. Did you ever 
notice the scriptural identification of Jesus with 
any believer—the being together with him, suf- 
ferers together, heirs together, glorified together ? 


} 


INDIVIDUALITY IN THE WORK 33 


Jesus moves along with each one in his separate 
path, knowing each one with the utmost exact- 
ness, and ministering to each one, if he will, with 
the utmost particularity. 

While our Lord preached to men in masses, he 
often turned from the crowds that pressed him 
and gave particular attention to particular cases. 
We have his individuality of dealing indicated in 
his discourse against anxiety; in the parables of 
the lost sheep, the lost piece of money, and the 
prodigal son. Poor and in need, alittle one, iY et 
the Lord thinketh upon me.” His thought and 
action are toward me, with my temperament and 
circumstances, with my infirmities and tempta- 
tions, with my work, my care, my weakness. He 
knows what things I have need of. 

Each Christian is a world by himself, is attended 
and encompassed in all his ways by the living 
Spirit, is a complete and everlasting work and 
care of his. A mother notices and enjoys the 
innocent peculiarities of the child, the husband of 
the wife. A parent draws near to the child with 
a hump on its back or a limp in its walk—this 
saddening peculiarity endears the child, . “Christ 
has tasted death for every man.” ‘ He loved me, 
and gave himself for me.” There is individualized 
redemption. It is not, Christ died for a man—he 
died for and he lives for persons. They can be 
numbered; they are neither more nor less. 


34 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


Notice there is the Spirit for each particular 
trial. “ In all your afflictions Christ was afflicted.” 
Here are numbering and weighing and measuring ; 
here are all the lesser as well as greater griefs, 
In all, Christ is your faithful counterpart and 
companion, even unto life’s extremest end. We 
read of the waters in Scripture, “ They run in dry 
places like a river.” Now you have your own 
particular burdens: the state of your health, the 
state of your finances, the condition of your work, 
your personal temperament, weaknesses, tempta- 
tions. You are permitted to feel that God will 
have a special charge of you in just these matters. 
He understands just you and knows how to man- 
age just you. He can help you a good deal. 
Jesus really meant it when he said, “Come unto 
me, all ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I 
will give you rest.” Jesus may not change your 
circumstances, but he can change you, he can be 
your especial helper in all your anxieties and sor- 
rows. You know, after exertion all day, you lay 
aside your work with your clothes, and go to bed 
and rest. Even so here, ‘The mother has her 
eye and her heart on the child. It is her child. 
That child provides not, cares not, but has an 
all-pervading trust. 

Now why this individuality of dealing? It is 
because God is a person and you are a person. 
It is other than a natural philosophy which prevails 


ee  — an 


INDIVIDUALITY IN THE WORK 25 


when we get into the region of pure personality. 
Natural laws do not reign in spiritual spheres, and 
the person isa spirit. Yes, the deepest poets and 
philosophers are right: we belong to more than 
the material world, and are subjects of more than 
natural science. The ancients and the men of 
medieval time were right in putting the study of 
man above that of nature. The idealists are right, 
man has ideals; the moralists are right, he is 
moral; the religious people are right, he is re- 
ligious. Such is he, so apparently diverse from 
the system of nature, while yet of it. lakertic 
vast earth of field and forest, plain and moun- 
tain-range, the infinite flowers and animal life: he 
is above all this. Take one star of these heavens, 
its huge bulk: a person has more worth than this 
ten thousand cubic miles of semi-fluid Jupiter or 
burning sun. Take all the stars, and they are not 
equal to the feeblest child among us. His is an 
order which they are infinitely below, as they go 
swinging along in all their roll and precision of 
curve and glory of motion. One person is infi- 
nitely above all nature ; when compared, his kind 
is of a royal sort. Nothing like him, so grand, 
so beautiful, so worthy and useful; nothing like 
him, so broad and high, and so alight with excel- 
lence. The person is the highest form of ex- 
istence. 

Again, in this world of innumerable sensitive 


36 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


creatures, where life is everywhere, it is ours to 
have a life of very high order, it is ours to be 
in part above merely animal law and condition. 
Man’s eye takes in the stars; he stands over 
against and contemplates all things. It is his to 
have other thoughts and sights than the animals 
have. It is his to sail other seas and reach an- 
other shore. It is his to have speech and tears 
and laughter. He sees the intellectual structure 
of the world, he beholds the beautiful, he feels 
the right, he believes in God. 

Now we are the better prepared to recognize 
individuality as characteristic of the divine rela- 
tions with us. The person by his will and other 
powers is eminently in each case individual and 
peculiar. “Then, too, we have the more individu- 
ality because we have person dealing with person. 
The father feels that he is the father ; he talks with 
his children, he is pleased with them, he lives 
with them, he works upon them and by them, he 
teaches and counsels. Joshua, probably meditat- 
ing on his work, received a vision and a commu- 
nication. Hezekiah, praying for his life, had 
a definite answer sent him. Daniel, concerned, 
and his friends praying about Nebuchadnezzar’s 
dream, received all the help he wanted; this in a 
dream of his own. 


ria bE have 
SPIRITUAL LIFE. 


IN studying spiritual life we are studying spiri- 
tual physiology, the religious soul in its freely 
formed habits and dispositions. We are studying 
the application of redemption to the person, the | 
practical work of grace in heart and life, the per- 
sonal completion of the general work of Jesus, the 
actual saving work of the indwelling Spirit. Many 
are the names which this life of Christian experi- 
ence goes by; many are the forms which it takes ; 
many are the modes of treatment which it has 
received in Christian literature. Every great re- 
ligious movement has made its own collection of 
treatises, biographical, didactic, and other; every 
generation of Christian life. Augustine, in his 
“Confessions,” told the story of his own experi- 
ence. Thomas a Kempis, in his “Imitation of 
Christ,’ told a similar story. So, too, Tauler in 
his “‘ Theologia Germanica,”’ Bunyan in his “ Pil- 
erim’s Progress,’’ Doddridge in his ‘‘ Rise and 
Progress of Religion in the Soul.” 

37 


38 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


Much, very much, does the New Testament 
speak of life: the spiritual life, the everlasting life, 
the life in Christ, the bread of life, the water of 
life. The word occurs scores of times. It ex- 
presses a large thought of our Lord’s, a large ex- 
perience of those who have faith in him. Let us 
stop for a while on this shore, and look a little 
about; behold a little the plants, the vines, and 
the trees; gather a few pebbles, shells, flowers, 
forget-me-nots. It is the garden land—many 
transplanted flowers are in it; and a wonderland, 
for the lilies and the roses and all the things here 
never die. It is the Holy Land indeed, the morn- 
ing land, the resurrection land. 

We think we have much in having ordinary life. 
But that life with which the Old Testament 
abounds and the New, that which is at the heart 
of every true Israelite and real Christian, is more 
and fuller, is freer and higher. In this life one 
inherits of nature grace and glory. Let me go 
round about this palace of life; and God grant I 
may go as a child and heir of it—enter and walk 
through it, not asa servant, but asason. I wish I 
could describe the vigorous vitalities, the growths, 
the perfections of spiritual life. Its feeling and 
freshness, its beauty and glory, are better felt than 
told. It cannot be penetrated and divided or 
analyzed. We can only tell about it: its begin- 
ning in the love of the living God; its seat in the 


eee eo 


SPIRITUAL LIFE 39 


heart; its opposites, halting and decrepitude, de- 
cay and death; its symbols, the sun, the dawn, 
and the spring. We know its light and guidance 
and comfort; the being not straitened but free in 
all living ways; the getting hold of the saving 
power that is around us, as in the air, a living, 
eternal law; the instant appropriation of the liv- 
ing Saviour if told of him. We know its flaming 
ardor: now upward to God, now outward to rock 
or plant, now to child of God or waif of the world. 
We know its zeal to win to Christ and glory. We 
know its prayer and praise and communion, and 
that when one walks this living way there are 
for him endless freshness and renewal, increasing 
strength and stature, gifts and graces that ger- 
minate and blossom and ripen. And yet we can- 
not measure nor calculate nor even compass the 
meaning and the blessing of the spiritual life. 
When we answer “Yes” to the question, 
‘““Have you experienced religion?” we are seeing 
the best, hearing the best, and catching the man- 
ner of the best. Ours are the holy beatitudes, 
each full of Christ and heaven. Ours are the 
hungering and the thirsting after righteousness, 
the tasting that the Lord is good, the eating of 
the hidden manna. Ours are rays of light, voices 
of guidance, touches of comfort, longings of love, 
and bursts of joy. We are in prayers and song, 
in fellowship and service, in all the sweetness and 


40 THE. DIVINE INDWELLING 


glory of the blessing of Christ, who, blessed be his 
name! is making the ideal in and for us to be real. 

Glancing at the characteristics of this spiritual 
life we notice first that it is in a sense natural. 
It is in ways and by methods that are reason- 
able and constitutional. The Christian is not like 
the dislocated rock-formation—broken, twisted, 
turned back on itself; an anomaly, a reversion of 
the usual order. He has not two mental com- 
partments, one for faith and one for reason; one 
for religious knowledge and one for ordinary 
knowledge. When faith comes reason does not 
go. God honors both. His light is not some 
rushing meteor coming from another system, but 
is the sun of our own system, is natural to it. 
This life does not create in us a frenzy, an ecstasy, 
and even take away consciousness. Superstition, 
that world-wide parody of religion, and especially 
of false religion and imperfect religion—supersti- 
tion has its convulsions, its unreasonableness, its 
unconsciousness. Not so true religion. Here is 
self-control, whatever the emotion: self-control as 
a moral necessity ; a necessity for true feeling, for 
true resolution, for true knowledge. Man makes 
no search and finds no knowledge without he 
retains his consciousness and his self-control. It 
would be strange if the mind in God’s image 
should lose consciousness when in God’s light, 
and when full of God’s life. 


SPIRIFUALSLIPE 41 


Again, spiritual life is in a sense an easy life 
to live. At the beginning, old habits are to be 
dropped, old associations broken, and new ways 
to be entered. But the Christian is so strong in 
faith, hope, and love that he thinks little of diff- 
culties. God freely comes, preserving, guiding. 
One resents nothing, resists nothing, but bends 
like the plant in the wind, floats like the stick on 
the stream. While he works and neglects noth- 
ing which he should do, still he finds that he is 
rather as the garden for another to tend and water. 
Menesperiect law of liberty may’ be reached) ‘He 
who has the divine indwelling is inclined and 
enabled to lead a Christian life. We know that 
devotion to a work, a cause, a person, is easy 
when inspired by love. For him who is inter- 
ested in astronomy it is easy to study astronomy. 
He counts not the hours, he thinks not of his 
labor that he may study the stars. Other natural 
causes help. Repetition creates habit, habit creates 
ease. The drill of the soldier makes him move 
even automatically at the word of command. 
Repetition also gives strength and skill. The 
gymnast practises until he does many things 
which once he was incapable of doing, until he 
does with grace what once he did awkwardly, 
until he does with ease what once he did with 
difficulty. All the graces are easy to have and 
practise. For instance, trust is not hard for the 


42 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


teachable. Study its reasons and it comes of 
itself. Read in biographies, histories, and the 
Bible, instances of it or reasons for it, then it 
arises and thrives; it grows like a garden well 
worked, well watered, and that lies in the sun. 
Or, again, self-denial becomes unconstrained, 
spontaneous, like that of a man for his family. 
Ejaculatory prayer becomes very easy for a Chris- 
tian. So also various Christian work. 

Yet because of our nature this life is vari- 
able. The movement of its feeling is sometimes 
quick and sometimes slow, sometimes even and 
sometimes uneven; now with great quietness like 
the lake on still days, and then like the lake run- 
ning with waves and whitecaps. Now the spirit 
soars and now sinks; now there is a thrill and now 
hardly even sense. Now the soul, “as a prince, 
has power with God and with men,” and now is 
“in heaviness through manifold temptations.” 
Principles are constant ; feelings inconstant—they 
have their ups and downs. Now the rain comes 
down in the mountains, and presently the river is 
rising; now we are sluggish and would burrow 
out of sight, like streams in a dry time. Christ 
comes, now in disguise and now as a prince ar- 
rayed. Now he leads into the valley of humilia- 
tion and now to the mountains where we see the 
city from afar. 

Further, this life in God is permanent. In the 


SPIRITUAL LIFE 43 


trees wells of sap are ever rising from root to leaf; 
rising through trunk and stem to topmost twig; 
working their ministry of life. ‘‘ The trees of the 
Lord are full of sap; the cedars of Lebanon, which 
he hath planted.” They not only live against de- 
cay within, they live against accident from with- 
out. So have I seen a great elm in a swampy 
soil rise high, with roots as cables holding it on 
every side. The cocoanut-tree, with its long, 
slender, tufted shaft, withstands the hurricane be- 
cause the roots hold. 

In Christ life is very fresh. New possibilities 
are being seen, new actualities are being expe- 
rienced. Now you magnify your life. Spiritual 
imagination is ever idealizing it, and this is ever 
freshening it. God in filling it full of himself is 
ever giving it a glow and a splendor. The seed, 
wind-wafted or caught in the hair of an animal, 
drops into a suitable place, gets put into dark- 
ness and moisture, germinates and sprouts, grows 
and becomes a tree. This yearly renews itself, 
creates new bark and rootlets, puts out new 
branches and leaves. How was life freshened to 
the Samaritan woman when she accepted the 
Christ! How was life freshened for Matthew, 
for Zaccheus, when they accepted the Christ! 
Hope enters as never before; so love, so peace. 
Ay, there is in the soul “a well of water spring- 
ing up into everlasting life.” It is really a fresher 


44 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


life than that of mere recreation and pleasure, 
than that of mere worldly business and work, 
than that of merely earthly study and knowledge. 
There is no disgust; nothing palls, nothing dis- 
appoints. There is unfailing freshness. New 
aims, new friends, a new Friend from heaven, a 
new Bible, a new Sunday, a new church, fresh 
prayer, fresh praise, new occupations. Wes: 


“The men of grace have found 
Glory begun below.” 


Spiritual life, however, cannot fully be described 
until we get beyond the present world. Human 
life here is radiant and glorious as the morning— 
this every-day wide-spread life of the world of 
men. But what is it there where the kingdom 
of God is fully restored in the human heart and in 
human society! We have the images of the Bible 
to set forth the blessedness which God’s wisdom 
and love can bestow, still only shadowing it. As 
old John Howe says, “ Let God have his reserves 
for our surprise and delight.” 

Spiritual life is limited by the condition of the 
believer: by his undeveloped state, by his infirmi- 
ties, by his want of responsiveness to God’s influ- 
ence. An evil will obstructs the work of the Word 
of God, the ministry of teacher and preacher. 
“The rebellious dwell in a dry land,” “and shall 
not see when good cometh.” Somewhat God 


————— ee 


SPIRITUAL LIFE 45 


cannot speak when we will not hear: the ear does 
not vibrate to the sound. Some duty presses; we 
dislike it, invent reasons to escape it, get to think 
it no longer a duty, and do not do it. The life 
from the Master, with the Master, and to the Mas- 
ter, is, in much, a matter of our own hearing the 
Master’s voice, our own following him, our own 
abiding where he abides. A look from him could 
arrest guilty Peter, a word from him would restore 
repentant Peter; but after all, it depended upon 
Reter. 


CHA PILERGVE 
THE DIVINE RENEWAL. 


THERE is no need that eternal winter shall 
reign: snow and naked lands and woods; no green 
grass, no sowing and reaping; the earth pure white 
everywhere, boundless, stretching away to the 
very sea-shores; all the river systems draining 
nothing, all the fields producing nothing; nature 
defying our efforts. Nature allows no such thing. 
The grass comes again, the buds of the fruit-trees 
turn to blossoms, the little things of the garden 
come up, the wheat grows fast, the little creatures 
of field and wood come out of their holes, the 
young of the domestic animals are all about us, 
the birds sing. 

So there is no need in man of spiritual death. 
The life of God behind every soul may come out 
whenever the person wills, and a glorious change 
become apparent. He knows and feels, and others 
perceive, that God is with him. This renewal is 
the most wonderful fact that can occur in the his- 
tory of any one; the greatest epoch, the most sol- 

46 


THE DIVINE RENEWAL 4? 


emn turning-point ; an event as wonderful as birth 

and more important than death. No beginning 
on earth is as bright as this. A new seed has 
been put into the seed-bed of the soul; a new 
germ created, from which shall arise a tree of life; 
a new spring is opened, springing up into everlast- 
ing life; the beginning of a river is made—a little 
beginning away up among the highlands: it is a 
river of life. 

The process of moral conversion is possible, is 
easily attainable. There is on the part of God 
free forgiveness of sins, and in this fact thoroughly 
believed and acted on is moral renewal. Love 
like that given by the Lord to Peter, which re- 
proaches in profound sadness and yet continues 
undying, has great reclaiming, converting power. 
God makes a sinner to feel that he can turn his 
back on all he has been; that there is no fatalism 
in a sinful, in a badly sinful life ; for hope is won- 
derfully stimulative to action for the better by him 
who has become sick of his sin. He who was 
strong in erroneous opinion, unhappy himself and 
perhaps a trial to Christian friends, has sometimes 
witnessed a great change in himself; has seen his 
doubts and denials pass away like “ the morning 
cloud and the early dew.”” He has seen the truths 
he had denied. He has seen the mountains which 
he said were not there. 

This renewal is in the Spirit of God. An in- 


48 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


strumental source is religious truth—truth about 
law, sin, and gospel, that for years may have 
lain in the mind unnoticed, unimproved, infertile. 
Then, slowly or suddenly, a new light fell upon 
those facts. They appeared as never before, clear, 
full, powerful, commanding. The person yielded 
to them and became a new man to see, to feel, 
and todo. He prayed, he praised, he spoke. Now 
he is wide-eyed, heaven-lighted; he wonders at 
the great revelation; he surprises himself, and 
often surprises others. A flame, a fire, the sun 
are vivid; so is he. 

Another instrumental source is faith, which is 
throughout life the greatest helpful human ele- 
ment. As in nature we are continually believing, 
so in grace. The son has faith in the father; the 
great Son of man and Son of God had faith in the 
Father. All the sons of God have faith in him. 
The faith creates the active life; in a sense, even 
the very life and sonship. ‘ We are the children 
of God by faith ’—personal faith, present faith: 
it is delivering faith, it is renewing faith. Now 
one is born again; now he has the new name; now 
he begins especially to be divinely nourished; now 
he is out of Egypt and into Canaan, out of the 
wilderness and into the Promised Land. His faith 
has carried him into the whole new life; has made 
him acquainted with new hopes, new people, new 
friends. It has proved the birth-power of his soul. 


— eS 


ss 


THE DIVINE RENEWAL 49 


His faith has put him into God as a plant is put 
into the soil. 

The soil gives mechanical support, the soil and 
air give nourishment to the plant; and the plant 
having its own life in itself, there is now no reason 
why it should not live and grow. And it shall. 
Each season it shall spring up higher. There ts 
limit to the size and age of a tree, but there is no 
such limit to the trees of life. | 

The real source is God himself. Facts have 
been discovered about the solar system; distur- 
bances, changes, which were finally accounted for 
by the discovery of a new planet. So there are 
changes in man which are accounted for by the 
presence of God, recreative and redemptive— 
these conversions, these new and heavenly graces 
in one, these new and beneficent purposes. The 
deepest poets have never pictured human nature 
as perfected in itself. The best men of affairs 
have never held any such opinion. Ordinary ob- 
servers do not, as a rule, have any such view. 
bv ilatever clse maybe perfected by virtuejor 
power in itself, human nature is not. God must 
intervene to redeem; must get into a human life 
and make it a kind of modification of his life. God 
quickens the soul as the air quickens the burning 
coal to a flaming and glowing mass; as the air 
quickens the soil when we plow and harrow or 
spade and hoe, or quickens us ourselves—we open 


50 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


the window in the morning, we go out into the air. 
So it is of the Holy Ghost to apply redemption to 
the soul; to lead to repentance, to saving faith in 
Christ; to create the new heart, the principle of 
spiritual life. “ As many as received Him, to them 
gave he power to become the sons of God.” 
Upon us so constituted, mysteriously and sadly 
situated as sinners, come the wonderful and su- 
pernatural possibilities of grace, neutralizing the 
powers of evil. The wintry land becomes a land 
of grass and grain, of flowers and fruit. Pleasant- 
ness and comfort are everywhere; the world is 
transformed ; life is victorious. As, day and night 
in early spring, the earth is breathed upon by soft 
airs and, though weakened and almost dead from 
the winter, still revives and renews itself, so in the 
springtime of the soul the breath of God passes 
Over it and it lives. Man is like a closed bud, 
which is of no great use until it opens; but it can- 
not open of itself. The sun must shine upon it, 
warmth and moisture must encircle it, the sap 
must penetrate it. Then, stirred and quickened, 
it will open. So with man. He cannot quicken 
himself. Only in and by the Lord can men know 
and care and hope and fear and seek to live aright. 
Persons have been in the darkness of unbelief, 
have been fortified against the faith, and yet God 
has enlightened them, has overcome fear, over- 
come opinion to the contrary, overcome habit and 


ht nite 


THE DIVINE RENEWAL 51 


disposition. Here is a poor fellow shipwrecked 
and thrown upon the sand like a tangle of seaweed 
torn from its bed and cast upon the beach after a 
storm. If he will but grasp hold of God right by 
him he shall be saved. God enters in and is won- 
- derfully renewing to us, the central power in us; 
our supports are in eternal being, and we shall 
live forever. 

To us who know Him there is only one that can 
cure the sickness of the soul and make everlasting 
health to be there, who can change the ugly dis- 
position by a magic touch; and that one is Christ. 
He but touched the maiden with his living hand 
and she lived. Prayer brings him, the spell of 
evil is broken, the nature is changed, and Christ 
is now the incomparable One; the Christ of the 
cross and the grave and the resurrection morning. 
He sets us free, he brings us back, he helps us be 
and bear and do. He overcomes for us eventu- 
ally every enemy. Looking to him with repen- 
tance, with obedience, with expectation, with trust, 
we shall never be ashamed. ‘‘ The Lord is my 
strength and my song, and he is become my sal- 
vation.” 

Divine and human agencies act together in re- 
newal, but in the order of thought the divine are 
the first; yet in reality both sets act together: 
the divine efficiency and the human are simulta- 
neous. That energy which both takes care of 


52 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


things and also enables them to take care of 
themselves is not far from every one of us. No 
star is nearer God, no sun, no highest spot or 
grandest on earth, is nearer God than you are. 
He 1s verily acting within you. 

This renewal is in various forms. The change 
is instantaneous, and yet its manifestations may 
be gradual. It takes time for the water-lilies to 
rise to the surface of the pond, to spread their 
broad leaves and open their big blossoms. It 
takes time for the life in the seed to have growth 
and fruit. It may take time for the Christian to 
get banished all false fear; time to get all religion 
made easy. But the blessed impulse has been 
received, and it shall go on until duty changes to 
delight. 

In the case of mature persons we generally see 
spiritual life begun by an act of choice, an act of 
decision. You must for yourself choose whether 
you will serve God, whether you will arise and 
follow the Lord. Such a turning, such a reversal 
of your life may be clear and distinct. Your con- 
version is, so to speak, your own act, made at 
such a time and in such a way. Many a man 
refuses, like Pharaoh and Felix, to do the Lord’s 
will. Many a man chooses, like Matthew and 
Zaccheus and the jailer of Philippi—chooses to 
do the Lord’s will. 


Again, and in the case of immature persons, 


THE DIVINE RENEWAL aR 


the beginning of the spiritual life, while a radical 
and decisive change, is obscure, and the conscious 
experiences are different from those of the former 
case. There is less of agitation and struggle and 
distress. 

So, also, the different systems of religion under 
which one has lived have each an effect upon 
the type of conversion, upon the form of the 
experience. 

Again, the type of conversion depends some- 
what on temperament, somewhat on training. In 
short, there is marked variety in the ways by which 
persons receive God as their Saviour. 

What is common to all types of conversion is 
the ceasing to do evil and learning to do well; is 
repentance and faith; is believing, affectionate ac- 
ceptance of the offer of salvation; is taking God 
at his word; is receiving God to rule and to help 
and to save in every sense; is willingness to own 
the change, the state, the act; is association with 
those who are of a like faith; is following the 
Lord dutifully and thankfully. 


Gin Geetha Want 
GROWTH IN GRACE. 


A LINE of advance is open to all by the pos- 
session of the divine indwelling. There need be 
no standing still, no decaying, no perishing. There 
may be a going forward—mind and heart borne 
on the river of life: for instance, the fearful even 
getting bold, the wavering getting established and 
even aggressive; he who was anxious getting to 
exercise a calm trust in the Lord for earthly sup- 
port or for some cherished project. Religious life 
is not as a stake or a stone or a finished crystal. 
It is a germ, a sprout, a child’s mind; something 
that has a natural growth. 

Growth occurs in all life, from creeping lichen 
and flowerless moss to every species of grass and 
to all the cereals which, multiplied innumerable, 
do in harvest cover the earth with their glory; 
we see it in all trees, from the hyssop of the wall 
to the cedar of Lebanon. A tree grows in root, 
stem, and leaf: the root downward to water and 
darkness; the stem upward to air and light, then 


54 


GROWTH IN GRACE 55 


spreading a leaf or two leaves, and thence mount- 
ing steadily heavenward until it becomes a sap- 
ling. The winters shall cherish it in strength and 
the springs in growth. Sometimes it is a simple, © 
leafy stem which thus grows up: a lily-stem, a 
stalk of wheat or timothy ; or, higher still, a stalk 
of Indian corn; or, still higher, a tree, a palm, its 
unbranched column rising high in the air and 
crowned with leaves and fruit. Sometimes it is a 
complex stem. Out of the mold, amid fragments 
of stone, starts some living thing; it grows and 
divides, rises erect above the earth, branching 
until we have a small tree ; then a larger; and 
then the whole high tree with its round, spread- 
ing top. We see it on the dividing line of the 
farm; we see it on the edge of the woods. So 
the person. By successive impulses he has more 
and more of life. Through nature and Provi- 
dence and the Bible and his own activity he has 
a larger reception of the Spirit. He is ever 
ascending, like a building going up amid bustle 
and dust and dirt without. The whole system 
of nature illustrates the ascent; certain parables 
of our Lord evidence it, as that of the germ, the 
blade, the stalk, the ear, the full corn in the ear. 

There is growth in size. The sun shines, the 
winds blow, the rain falls, time passes, and the 
tiny plant grows in size and strength unto the 
tall and spreading tree conspicuous in the sweep 


56 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


of the landscape, or unto the towering tree, like 
the pine or hemlock, that rises above the sur- 
rounding woods. He who has the divine in- 
dwelling has the whole man rising to a higher 
level, like a. continent, wide and compact, with 
one ocean shore. 

There is improvement in quality: the purify- 
ing, the dropping of what is dead, the leaving 
behind what is outgrown; the passing from Ur 
of the Chaldees to Haran, and from Haran to 
the Promised Land; the passing on, like Abra- 
ham, leaving one altar and setting up another, 
leaving Bethel and going to Hebron. There is 
the stronger adherence to principle, but less ad- 
herence to the form of its expression or the letter 
of itsstatement. There is the purifying, extend- 
ing, exalting of principle; the giving up of the tab- 
ernacle for the temple, the Sabbath for the Lord’s 
day, the ceremonial law for the gospel. There 
is, by alterations and transitions, an improvement 
in quality. So it is in science and art, in educa- 
tional theory and practice, in theology and reli- 
gion. The deeper the piety, the more the trans- 
formations. The greater the vitality, then the 
more elastic the person, and the greater his power 
to grow. 

As plants strive toward the sun, and in its light 
and heat their juices increase, their foliage ex- 
tends, their branches widen and multiply, so with 


GROWTH IN GRACE 57 


him who is in Christ. The dew, the rain, the 
air and sun, the sap, all in their wonderful pro- 
cesses make mellow the flinty pear, make sweet 
the sharp, sour grape, enrich and make luscious 
the fruits of all the trees of all the orchards. 
Similarly the Spirit does his gentle work, illu- 
mining, comforting. 

He who was in much driven is now in much 
drawn. He to whom religion was in much a 
law now has it in much a gospel. He is less 
clogged and heavy ; he has come out into the sun- 
shine; he dwells in the presence of Christ; he 
has fresher vision of the Lord. Waves of glory 
from the mighty ocean more often flow in, until 
for a moment now and then he gazes upon the 
unseen glories and realizes their delights. We 
read, ‘‘ Mercy shall be built up forever.” Cathe- 
drals are changed and enlarged from time to 
time; now one part is completed and now an- 
other, now the work goes on and now it is sus- 
pended, until at last the whole, perchance, is com- 
pleted. But the spiritual building is in reality 
never done, though always uprising. 

Again, there is growth in diversity, variety. 
The piety of some is always rudimentary, unde- 
veloped. It is ever insistent upon two or three ~ 
doctrines, two or three experiences, two or three 
practices only. But the growing Christian is like 
a branching vine. The stock sends a branch 


58 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


along the trellis, post after post; lesser branches 
come out, and from these still smaller branches ; 
tendrils put forth and seize hold, clusters of leaves 
appear, and presently the young fruit isseen. A 
tree pushes out from trunk into boughs, these into 
branches, these into twigs, these into leaves; it is 
ever division and subdivision. So arises, trunk and 
top, the largest forest-tree; every part in its place 
—boughs, branches, and twigs like a great army, 
and leaves as common soldiers. So he who is in 
the Spirit tends in this direction and in that. He 
has more varied thought, more varied feeling; he 
is swayed now by one emotion and now by an- 
other. His beliefs increase in number, and so his 
desires. He is like nature, where we behold 
mountains and hills, woods and fields, lakes and 
streams. He has more virtues than one, more at- 
tributes than one; his work ramifies. The circle 
of his life widens as the years go by, and the 
powers multiply, though the glorious ideal shall 
never be real till in paradise; where one shall 
be complete like one of the clover-heads of the 
meadow—well rounded, rich in color, standing on 
its stem; where that endless power which rounds 
the dewdrop and rounds the sun shall keep us ever 
rounded though we be ever growing. 

So pregnant, so productive and expansive is 
Christian life. Jesus said, “I am come that they 
might have life, and that they might have it more 


GROWTH IN GRACE 59 


abundantly.” His kingdom is ever one of pos- 
session and of increasing possession. Life in God 
is not growth and maturity, then decline and 
death; but is ever growth. With the sea it is ~ 
surge and sink, surge and sink—one endless rise 
and fall of wave since time began. Not so with 
believing man. In the vigor of his life he is ina 
state of constant growth. The law of his life is 
a law of growth. In many ways and for many 
days he makes progress, receiving of the heaven 
above and earth beneath. At no stage and never 
are the spiritual forces spent or wasted. By suc- 
cessive waves of secret power he is ever being 
carried nearer to God; by successive leading is 
being brought from lower stages to higher. By 
force within and influence without is he ever 
passing into something richer, better, and more 
eladdening. That which is begun with blessed 
commencement is forever being consummated. 


CHAT TE Raavdids 
THE DIVINE ILLUMINATION. 


WE that are entered into the Spirit have much 
to go over when we begin to talk of the one con- 
tinuous and varied heaven in which we are, as 
grace-bearers here and glorified there; all the 
gracious and glorious history from the initial il- 
lumination of each of us to the final ending for 
each. All the properties and operations of the 
divine indwelling are in much combined, though 
we have to consider them separately. Even as 
the wind goes about in its circuits, so does the 
Spirit in his. In his incessant and multiplied 
activity he produces, like the atmosphere, differ- 
ent kinds of works. Yet the spiritual life has 
such a unity that to divide up that life even in 
thought has a tendency, unless guarded against, 
to destroy the true idea of the life. 

I wish to speak of that peculiar and distin- 
guishing work of God within which we call illu- 
mination. I want clearly to perceive this in all 


its glory. Very impressive is this enlightenment 
6o 


THE DIVINE ILLUMINATION 61 


as an object of contemplation ; impressive in what 
it is and what it does; as impressive as the amaz- 
ing splendor and work of the sun in the long 
summer-time. Of like vigorous vitality is the 
illumination of the Holy Ghost in the vast world 
of holy intelligences. 

Experimental perception is the root of experi- 
mental theology and piety. It is illuminated 
thoughts which create spiritual feeling and reso- 
lution. One must see the truth before it can act 
upon him. Though he is born into grace all 
around and at once, yet, logically speaking, we 
conceive of him as seeing before feeling, before 
appreciating and appropriating. Action in the 
things of salvation is not blind, but seeing; is 
not receiving one knows not what, yielding to 
one knows not whom; is not praying and prais- 
ing and serving in ignorance. There is the Spirit 
giving a keen perception of God working in sal- 
vation, of glorious renewal, of all those things of 
the Spirit which are spiritually discerned. Much 
does the Bible speak of light shining in upon the 
souls of men. Again and again is there reference 
to this great experience. 

It is as impossible to describe this enlighten- 
ment as it is to describe any simple, original per- — 
ception of the soul—that of sound, for instance. 
One has really to hear to know what sound means. 
Light shines and lights up the room, the landscape. 


62 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


In the darkness a powerful telescope is directed to 
a little shining spot in the sky, collects the rays, 
and straightway Jupiter is before us with its belts 
and satellites. In light there is something seen. 
In natural light we behold all the kingdom of life: 
wide in its range, a thousand times greater in all 
things than we are aware; all the beautiful flow- 
ers of all sorts in all the gardens; all the forms 
and foliage of all the forests; all the wonderful 
things in fields of grass and grain. The rising 
sun scatters gloom and darkness; reveals the 
earth and gives it splendor; reveals all the ex- 
tended world, all the great breadths of the land 
and of the sea, all the many parts; discovers 
every herb and tree, every form and feature of 
earth and its great life; reveals the beautiful 
scene of this fair world of existence. 

In the light which shines on our fair world I 
find a likeness to the blessed light of a world still 
fairer. As, when the day is over and the hush of 
life has ceased, we in the silence of evening gaze 
upward and behold the deep heavens, finding a 
multitude of things there we saw not in the day, 
so in the Spirit we behold in all its solemn gran- 
deur that other world. As in the night all the 
heavens are seen, all the planets beam down upon 
us, all the glittering constellations rise and set, so 
likewise is it with the other mysterious heavens. 
There is a world within this and beyond it; far 


THE DIVINE ILLUMINATION 63 


away, in one sense, from this world, and yet in 
every-day connection with it—yes, even sur- 
rounding it. Learners in earthly lore get know- 
ledge of all trees and seeds, of all chemistries and 
vitalities. There rolls and pours upon the shore 
a boundless ocean of knowledge, indescribable, 
unspeakable; never such a kingdom of thought 
as to-day in secular knowledge. So the learners 
of heavenly lore have treasure; are rich in wealth 
of grace, in mines and quarries, in shops and 
looms, in fabrics fine of heavenly things. 
Spiritual illumination gives deep sense of the 
peculiar gospel facts. It shows no absolutely new 
thing, no great truth not found in the Bible. It 
is not that degree of illumination which prophets 
and apostles had. But it is a wonderful stimulant 
for us and makes our riches known. As out of the 
valley we rise on the hillside, and, rising still, we 
climb the ridge, and at each turn, from one high 
place, we see the horizon farther and farther off, 
beholding in the clear air the vast landscape near 
and far away, seeing the whole strong, calm land, 
so, as we rise spiritually, we see the spreading 
lands of spiritual life on which shines the sun. 
No measure can heap up the wealth of their har- 
vests, no mind can count the treasure of their 
products. God opens himself in nature as behind 
the hills, the streams, the lake; opens himself in 
passages of his providence and of his Word. So 


64 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


high born are his, to have their eyes opened to 
the majesty and love and glory of the Lord, and 
to their own high estate in him. They, above all 
guesses and reasonings, see the sky deep and 
calm. They are open to all the heavens—heart 
and eyes to all the wonders of God. So great is 
the sweep of the knowledge of the child of the 
Lord. It is a knowledge even of eternal things. 
As we pass over the sea of this life, sometimes 
our boat comes within sight of the heavenly land; 
we see the great mountains rising up, their tops 
shining like gold; and now and then we come 
within hail of the shore. 

The Spirit teaches us the true doctrine. ‘“ He 
will teach sinners in the way.” They shall not 
fail of the way or zz the way. Churches widely 
separate in place and time, churches free in choice 
and judgment, have recognized the true doctrine. 
The earlier church perceived and expressed the 
truth in a competent form. The church of to- 
day, with new questions, can perceive the true 
doctrine. Deceivers should have no power; nei- 
ther Cain nor Korah nor Balaam nor all the de- 
ceivers of all the ages. The truths of the ever- 
lasting kingdom shall surely be made known; no 
enchantment can prevail against Israel. Ever as 
it journeys it may journey inthe daytime. Vexed 
it may be, but never torn, unless by the coming 
out of some wicked one. 


THE DIVINE ILLUMINATION 65 


It is impossible to deceive the elect; they shall 
have a right sense of all important Scripture. 
Many and profitable things are so found in the 
Bible that the Christian church has no question 
about them and enters into no dispute concern- 
ing them. Not to accept them is more than 
simple error—it is heresy and sin; they are only 
hid from the lost. A man can learn sufficient to 
live by and to die by; he can learn that he should 
believe, also in whom and in what. These truths 
will give him a faith that shall justify him. He 
may not learn enough to fill a library, but he 
shall learn enough to fill his soul. 

This enlightenment is also about questions of 
duty as well as of doctrine. General obligations 
are easily recognized, but no book is large enough 
to contain their possible applications, to tell us of 
our duties in detail. We have to take up new 
duties, to lay down old ones. God will help us 
to know. We shall have spiritual discernment. 
Commands, promises, examples, are directions. 
As in the course of the circling year contin- 
gencies occur, now one promise and now an- 
other shall come to direct us. And sometimes 
the Word shall come home with such clearness 
and power that we become quite sure of the di- 
vine will. 

This sensibility of the soul is of God. Said 
the prophet, “ Jehovah shall be to them an ever- 


66 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


lasting light.’”’ Said the Apostle, ‘In him are 
hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” 
He who creates all things in reason and guides 
them in wisdom is the everlasting Teacher of his 
people. No ministry avails unless God minister 
with it. No baptism, no Supper of the Lord 
teaches until God touches. When he teaches he 
prepares the heart for his teaching: “I by the 
Spirit will show you plainly of the Father;” 
“ Neither knoweth any man the Father, save the 
Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal 
him.” Paul speaks of ‘‘ the spirit of wisdom and 
revelation in the knowledge of him’”’; and also of 
“ the light of the knowledge of the glory of God.” 
Now is made plain what was doubtful, now is laid 


) 


open what was hidden. Now is advance from a 
sense which scarcely realizes itself to a deep sense 
of spiritual realities. 

I turn to the helps to spiritual light. Life is a 
help. One must bea hawk to have the telescopic 
sight of a hawk; to know as he does how he sails 
and circles and swoops; to know as he does his 
enemies and his food; to know as he does his 
place of nesting and his course of migration. So 
one must be a Christian before he can see Christ. 
“Except a man be born again, he cannot see the 
kingdom of God.” And the Apostle says, “ Fol- 
low after holiness, . . . without which no man 
shall see the Lord.” Jesus said, “ Unto you it 


THE DIVINE ILLUMINATION 67 


is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom 
of God ’’—this because you are spiritually living, 
and not because you are a favored number, not 
because intentional secrets exist, not because cer- - 
tain teachings are abstruse. Paul thought that 
the Corinthians ought easily to find among them 
persons competent to judge in disputes of prop- 
erty. ‘‘ The spiritual man judgeth all things”; 
he can look over that which lies below, and com- 
pare in it one thing with another. ‘ The saints 
shall judge the world.”’ They can exercise in its 
fullest measure their wonderful discernment. 
One, then, must be a living Christian to have 
Christian insight. 

Another instrumental source of spiritual light 
is love. Liking is a great help to learning, taste 
to being taught. It is so in music, in painting, 
in science. A man likes to study crystals; their 
laws and shapes, their planes and proportions, 
their angles and systems. He who enjoys the 
splendid form, color, and architecture here is 
the one to study here. His liking gives him to 
appreciate and see somewhat as God sees. So 
love to a man helps to perceive the things of the 
man, and love to God to perceive the things of 
God. Ever thus the deep of love calls and the 
deep of knowledge responds. The loving soul be- 
comes a lighted soul. ‘“ He that loveth me... 
I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.” 


68 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


Love, then, is a glass which helps us to behold 
the glory of the Lord. Only in love can we see 
into the depths of truth about love. Only in 
devotion to God can we understand God. 

Another help to light is obedience. It gives 
knowledge of experience—a more vivid and thor- 
ough knowledge than that which is merely theo- 
retical. The Apostle says, “If any man will do 
his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it 
be of God; ”’ he shall be in a more willing frame 
to learn; he shall be in a practical way to learn. 
“The secret of the Lord is with them that fear 
him.” From these Scripture statements we also 
gather that there is a spiritual law or process; 
that he who honestly purposes to obey God shall 
learn of God. ‘“‘ He that followeth me shall not 
walk in darkness’’—he that would do the very 
things I would have him do, and in the very way 
I would have him. ‘‘ The meek will he guide in 
judgment, and the meek will he teach his way.” 

Docility is a help to illumination. One must 
be teachable who would truly and well learn to 
swim or to row or to ride horseback. These are 
arts and accomplishments to do well in which re- 
quires much careful practice. So if one has 
practically injurious notions, is immature, pre- 
judiced, ignorant about the things of Christ, 
teachableness would be a saving trait in that 
one’s character, 


CiebaVet tee IDS 
THE SUBJECTS OF ILLUMINATION. 


THE light is upon all. The bright sun sends 
and forever sends light, and circles with it the 
whole earth. The light runs through all the 
world, and no telescope has found where light 
is not. The inspired poet makes the light a 
symbol of God’s omnipresence, saying, ‘“ He 
clothes himself with light as a garment.’ The 
sun which shines on plants and animals and all 
the multitude of things is a token of that Sun 
which shines on the world of men and angels. 
“There is a Light which lighteth every man that 
cometh into the world”’; as God’s earthly, so his 
heavenly Sun, shining on every one’s lot and way. 
Most living, most catholic is the divine Spirit; 
most broad, never confined within temples made 
with hands; most like the grand and simple light 
of day. His light explores every near and dis- 
tant shore where human beings are; it streams 
and ever shall stream. An atmosphere, an ocean, 
is this light; we are as birds playing in that air, as 

69 


7O THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


ships sailing on that ocean. None but men have 
the enlightenment, with all the much blessing it 
gives, And whether men receive little or much, 
we can say of the Spirit’s instructions, as the 
psalmist of the heavens, “ Their line is gone out 
through all the earth, and their words to the end 
of the world.” 

But it belongs especially to the new man to 
know of spiritual things; it is a gift of his nature: 
he cannot but learn of Christ, cannot but appre- 
hend the things which are perfect and forever 
refreshing; things without measure or number, 
things in which most of all God is praised and 
loved. He has awakened into this life even as the 
city child awakens in the morning in the country, 
out of the deep sleep of the journey, to a glorious 
garden land, its skies and slopes, its winds and 
perfumes, its very silence. As the flowers open 
and turn toward the sun, so opens the Christian 
soul to the Sun of Righteousness. Yet the glo- 
rious circle of unseen things is far too vast for us 
to see but here and there within the spaces. As 
when in the twilight we wander along the road- 
side, some things shine and many are hidden, so 
here we skirt much of which we know little. Nor 
are things uniformly bright, nor is our sunshine 
continual. There are variable bright spots and 
dark in that unseen world, which yet is so strongly 
illuminated. 


THE SUBJECTS OF ILLUMINATION fa 


I turn to the whole band of these sons of the 
morning. I turn to that fairest and most perfect 
object on earth, the spiritual church; in which 
were Abraham and Moses, David and the pro- 
phets; the church of Christ and Christians. It is 
built up of stones the very chief for shining, and 
is a very house of light. God’s people are a band 
of fair illuminated ones in mystic fellowship of 
knowledge, having no earthly, but a heavenly, 
sun. When to Israel in its wanderings God 
would give the assurance of his presence to 
guide, it was in a pillar of light. When to the 
tabernacle he would betoken his presence, it was 
by a shining cloud, a holy light over the ark, the 
center of the church, and Israel’s oracle of in- 
struction. In the wilderness all the people en- 
camped around that Shechinah in order, accord- 
ing to their tribes. Believers when together are 
more than the sum of believers apart. The light 
of the-whole church is greater than the combined 
light of its separate members. And so the church 
has an especial communion in the light. The 
apostolic writers appeal to the Christians as hav- 
ing a common spirit of knowledge with the writers, 
by which spirit to judge of the truth written; be- 
ing those “who have an unction from the Holy 
One, and know all things.” 

We now understand how God’s people have ex- 
isted, and his work has gone on, when and where 


72 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


there has been no Bible and even no conspicuous 
prophet. The church teaches; she guides to the 
source of comfort and liberty, of peace and joy. 
In many ages she was practically the Bible, the 
only outward light. She has led where her Scrip- 
tures could not be read, and been, as she is, an 
angel of light. 

The gifts of knowledge and wisdom are but an 
especial enlargement and variety of common illu- 
mination. They are precious and heavenly work- 
ings, natural in form; an energy for all super- 
intendence and office-work in the church, for 
preaching, for dealing with inquirers, for reaching 
cases of conscience, for discriminating deceivers 
and deceived. 

The illumination of prophets, apostles, and 
Scripture writers is but a distinct and special 
gift of sight, so that they, above all others, are 
called seers. An unutterable and glorious gift 
was theirs, precious and awful. They stood on 
the mountain tops of vision. Peculiar days of 
light were those, hallowed in this above all other; 
the highest and the rarest. Those men are like 
plants springing up among the grass, that rise 
above the things which surround them, and so the 
sun shines on them more freely. 

But their day has gone by. At the most it 
only rose upon a few hundred; and while recog- 
nizing their incomparable supremacy, we still ask, 


THE SUBJECTS OF ILLUMINATION 73 


What are they to the myriads of Israel? What are 
they to all those that are enlightened by the Spirit ? 

Our times to theirs seem poor, yet the glory 
of this latter day is that revelation is complete, ~ 
and so is much better understood; and that know- 
ledge is vastly more diffused. The solitude is 
never broken by an angel now, nor the noonday 
by a light above the sun; but we have the Bible 
and the illuminating Spirit. 

Such are the children of light. Their lineage 
is along and bright one. They have seen the 
mystery of salvation, the eternal good things. 
Only in such knowledge as theirs is all our salva- 
tion, all our hope and glory. And now we under- 
stand when we read, “‘ Arise, shine; for thy light 
is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon 
thee.’ What witnesses are such to whom in all 
the years is given the heavenly vision—given to 
see, and to have all the admiration of seeing, the 
great love of God and power of the kingdom! 
This is what the holy singer wanted—this divine 
knowledge—when he prayed, ‘‘ Make me to have 
truth in the inward parts.” 

This light, so blessed in this dark world, is the 
light of heaven. Thereisno night there. Those 
crowns shall never cease to glisten, those faces fair 
to shine; the sight of the Lord shall never be with- 
drawn; on all the radiant glory no shadow shall be 
cast. ‘‘ The Lord is thine everlasting light.” 


CHAPTER 
THE CHARACTERISTICS OF ILLUMINATION. 


FIRST, spiritual seeing is in harmony with our 
natural powers, as much so as is natural seeing. 
Within these little orbs, the eyes, all things come 
without disturbance. The butterfly and the bee 
go flying over the fields, seeing with perfect ease. 
In comfort and in luxury we look at the lake, at 
the ravine with its stream and rocky sides, and off 
at the rich masses of hill and valley and green 
earth. So in no way does spiritual seeing affect 
our balance, our reasonableness, our common 
sense. When we perceive, reason is not dethroned 
or placed on one side. He who sees these things 
of God by no means antagonizes his reason, is by 
no means a fool. This light is as natural as that 
of thesun. Yet so it is that sometimes the reason 
cannot give its reasons, and we suffer disquiet and 
disappointment because that which is believed in 
the very soul is to another foolishness. So, also, 
in no way does spiritual seeing affect our con- 
sciousness, creating a frenzy, an ecstasy, a de- 

74 


THE CHARACTERISTICS OF ILLUMINATION 75 


lirium. Ordinarily there is not the rapt vision of 
some unconscious devotee. Superstition, in its 
ever-existing and world-wide parody of religion, 
may claim such. But he who has spiritual dis- 
cernment generally retains his self-control, what- 
ever his fervor of emotion; he by no means loses 
his senses. 

Again, illumination is now mingled with dark- 
ness even as the early morning has light mixed 
with darkness. The light is now pale and gray 
and tender. Sometimes the twilight lingers long 
between night and day, the quiet shadows hold- 
ing on, the beautiful day in its full glory hardly 
opened as yet. The morning has come before 
the night has gone. Sometimes in the path of 
duty there is hardly light enough, and we see 
giants in the way, “great and grim.” It is as 
when one climbs a mountain he sees plainly a part 
of the way, anda part he does not see. Of some 
truths we do not have the right point of view, 
and they present but a mass of confused color, 
but a misty brightness. Then, again, in the doc- 
trines, as in nature, light and shade exist together, 
and the greater the light the greater the shade. 
We have the blazing light of the Trinity, and a 
dark shade all around; so of the incarnation and 
so of the atonement: light on the fact, shade on 
the explanation. Even the lantern makes the 
night around all the darker; the brighter the 


76. THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


light the darker the shadow. The bright revela- 
tions of the Word are surrounded with a darkness 
which speculation endeavors in vain to penetrate. 

Spiritual vision has not the possibilities the 
mystics claim for it, making it reach even to pure 
vision. Their teaching is an exaggeration of faith 
and has led to various extravagances and curious 
forms of religion, to some vicious and loose prac- 
tices. The history of excessive belief in inner light 
is a large and instructive one. Rather than intel- 
lect, will, and sensibility acting in combination in 
religious exercises, and so balancing each other, 
regulating each other, in quietism the element 
of feeling has acted without the other powers, 
and the result has been harm. 

Illumination increases and gives wider views. 
To one high up miles and miles of country appear, 
the hills and hollows of half a county are traced; 
he sees below and around and off over a far-dis- 
tant prospect, field and wood, hillside and level, 
land and water and sky. In the view there is 
suggested the wide and vast earth. We have 
with the coming dawn the feeling that the day 
is coming, with its revelation of all that is un- 
seen; that our little isolated lights of the night 
shall be no longer necessary; that we may blow 
them out; that the earth has turned into the sun 
once more. The morning light continues and is 
strong; it is not swallowed up of the night. It 


THE CHARACTERISTICS OF ILLUMINATION rh 


certainly is victorious. You cannot stop the sun 
arising ; cannot so bar and close in earth’s dark- 
ness that the sun shall not break through. It 
strikes the mountains, it penetrates the valleys, 
it covers the plains, it enters the most secluded 
recesses of the forest, it spreads until all is filled. 
So the inevitable result of this beginning to 
know is that you go on to know. This in 
amount, as the moon in light passes from quar- 
ter to half and from half to full. Moses learned 
by degrees; so Isaiah. The apostles were not 
fully taught, even after three years with Jesus, 
nor after Pentecost. Paul increased in know- 
ledge. Illumination increases and gives clearer 
views. You increase in distinctness of know- 
ledge; outlines and prominent features but faintly 
traced before become decidedly visible. The uni- 
formity of distance is changed to the multiplicity 
and variety of nearness. He who is in the Spirit 
tends to be definite and intelligible in what he 
believes. The spiritual church holds the great 
truths of revelation in simple language; makes 
them, though most mysterious, most definite—so 
simple and plain that a child can understand 
them. 

. Now, however, we are in the pale light of 
morning; the stars still glimmer; our eyes are 
still wet with tears, and the land is a land of fogs. 
But yet a little and the day shall stream down 


78 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


bright, and lo! the sky of heaven. The way- 
worn have but to go ona little farther, and ina 
few hours or on the morrow they shall have 
reached a lighted world exceeding fair. 

Still unto the last of earth, while some things 
shall be clearly seen, others shall be in shadow; 
yet there is a land where we shall see as not here, 
if so happy as to enter there—the land of vision. 
“At evening-time it shall be light.” When the 
earthly day is passed and the earthly labor done, 
then in the course of nature we expect darkness, 
but in the course of grace we have light. And 
it shall discover what yet was hidden and make 
plain what still was doubtful. 

The morning is preéminently free of dust and 
turmoil, is preéminently fair. So the deep sig- 
nificance when Scripture speaks of the morning 
of the resurrection, and of heaven as the morn- 
ing-time. ‘In the morning it shall be light.” 
Who shall say what he sees who has ascended 
above the region of sense and entered within that 
of spirit; who has received the unspeakable in- 
heritance and entered into contemplation face to 
face with the eternal realities? One of the love- 
liest and happiest conceptions of that eternal 
world is that we shall walk in the light. “The 
Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light.” 

Such are the characteristics of the great vision 
that makes all things radiant to him who sees; 


THE CHARACTERISTICS OF ILLUMINATION 79 


such is the character of that heavenly light by 
the influence of which we live in Christ, to per- 
ceive and appropriate whom is faith and trust. 
And now the prophecy and promise is, that if. 
thou walk in the paths of righteousness, “ then 
shall thy light break forth as the morning.”’ 

The great leader and teacher of to-day is the 
Holy Ghost, a master to whom the church was 
committed by her Lord. ‘It is expedient for 
you that I go away.” ‘‘ When he, the Spirit of 
truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth.” 
He, the true God, who dwells perpetually with 
every believer, has this unique work. It is in 
some respects the first of the Spirit’s great func- 
tions in the economy of grace. He helps the 
teaching of nature, providence, and the Bible; 
brings things to mind, puts things in a strong 
light, increases the discernment. It is light now 
upon privilege, or duty, or Scripture. It comes, 
we consenting or not. Things that, as it were, 
stood black against the night, take on form and 
color in this blessed morning light. Such is the 
gracious gift added to reason, the Bible, and the 
church: the clearer insight, the firmer grasp of 
truth; and so the fuller sympathy with all truth 
and all lovers of truth, and with Him who is the 
Truth. 


CHEAT Liha 
DIVINE GUIDANCE. 


ONE of the manifestations of divine illumina- 
tion is in leading. Life isa way and needs much 
leading: leading in the large and leading in the 
little; leading when on the heights and leading 
when in the valleys. And being thus, the Lord 
himself comes descending to lead. Not only is 
he a guard, he is also a guide. Morning by 
morning he leads us as we go out, evening by 
evening as we return, and so to the last of earth, 
and then he begins anew as our feet begin to tread 
the heavenly land. 

Sometimes we neglect the divine direction; we 
take a stand, make a move, without carefully 
looking to see what God would have us do in 
the circumstances. Events show that we have 
made a mistake. Certain ways are better than 
certain other ways. Yet men think to do with- 
out God’s wisdom, and to go on simply by their 
own. Nadab and Abihu would add their strange 


fire to that on the Lord’s altar. The Levite was 
8o 


DIVINE GUIDANCE $i 


so concerned for the ark that he steadied it. 
Naaman thought he knew a better way than 
the prophet’s to cure the leprosy. Peter would 
thwart the Lord’s intent and action to wash 
Peter’s feet, and would be wiser than the Master. 
Certainly it is ours to become acquainted with 
these leadings of the Lord. We have but to ap- 
preciate and appropriate the directing work of 
God. Here is one of the believer’s privileges; 
one of the sacred mysteries; a part of the realism 
of the heavenly kingdom; a spiritual, habitual, 
guiding illumination. It is a delightful doctrine 
for every one who is in the divine life. There 
are matters in which we are wise to wait upon 
God for direction, and here comes in this special 
experience in redemption. 

In certain circumstances guidance is absolutely 
necessary. He who goes here and there in the 
chambers of Mammoth Cave without a guide 
must finally lie down and die, lost forever to all 
the upper world of light and life. The ship out 
of its reckoning sees a certain light on the coast, 
and the despairing crew is safe again: that 
piercing light going far and wide out to sea 
guides and saves the darkened vessel. Now, 
spiritually, man is in danger—danger of losing 
his soul. He needs divine wisdom to help him. 

In other cases guidance is quite essential. In 
journeyings we must always know the way, 


82 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


whether we go by sea or land, on foot or by rail. 
Nothing will take the place of that—good health, 
money, pleasant weather, nothing. So is it in 
religious, and, indeed, in all life. We pursue 
our way over hill and valley: sometimes the path 
is clear, sometimes it is faint, and sometimes we 
lose it altogether; and yet we need never be at 
fault, for the Lord is our guide. We must never 
separate him from our daily life, but in childlike 
simplicity let him share it with us. Many things 
which we cannot discover he will discover. He 
will ever help us to find our way; he meets this 
need, gives this privilege. With him in us we 
have his counsels of direction; we have the 
Wonderful, the Counselor; we can remove diffi- 
culties; we can sometimes work marvels. Our 
partner is very wise. Certainly mistakes and 
errors and wanderings canbe avoided. Such 
evils in God’s people are because they have 
failed to hear or to heed his voice. Wherever 
human force is accompanied by human intelli- 
gence it may be by divine, by His whose wisdom 
is in all the various creatures and their activity, 
in all the frame of things and their movements. 
“ There is a spirit in man: and the inspiration of 
the Almighty giveth them understanding.” 

In many another situation this guidance is very 
desirable. Evidently we are not wise enough of 
ourselves to pass with safety, with comfort and 


DIVINE GUIDANCE 83 


success, through such a world as this. We need 
light and leading from above. The right thing 
and the wise are often hidden; what is coming 
is always hidden. We are thoughtless, preén- - 
gaged, not cool enough; we need one who looks 
farther ahead and farther around than we do; 
and in God’s codperation with us we have just 
such a provision made. Ours is quite his posi- 
tion who gives himself over to the church, the 
priest, the pope, for guidance. So doing with 
God, we shall ever sooner or later hear the 
words, “This is the way.” So efficacious is the 
leading that it brings us out of all doubt and ir- 
resolution, out of all confusion. We are led to 
what is right and what is wise. The divine mind 
is with us. There are great possibilities revealed 
in the Scriptures concerning divine leading. 

In every case, ‘‘ Commit thy way unto the Lord, 
Direct by his word, 


) 


and he will direct thy paths. 
by his general providence, by especial providence ; 
direct in the great paths, the place to live in, the 
means of livelihood, the course to pursue; direct 
in the little paths, the special errand, the least 
things of life. 

This leading is brought out in the Twenty- 
third Psalm, where the shepherd leads his flock. 
Calm and confident, he leads in ways they do not 
stumble in or wander from, and where plenty is. 
His arm is strong and his feet swift. He rises in 


84 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


his strength, and his fair face shines as he leads 
hisown. None that will be led, whether in dan- 
ger or astray, but may follow him. Day by day, 
hour by hour, he goes before. We need not 
number or measure our difficulties, and least of 
all fall before them. And he will never lay aside 
his leading us in this world until we leave it. 

We read in Isaiah, ‘‘ He that hath mercy on 
them shall lead them, even by the springs of water 
shall he guide them.”’ It isa story of the desert. 
He shall lead them away from the loose and 
scorching, bare and barren sands, unto springs 
and running waters among trees and palms; lead 
them out of the suffocating valleys and from amid 
the walls of heated sand; lead them, now blown 
upon by fiery winds, and now under the pouring 
heat of the sun, no rest for the eye amid the 
glare, “little to eat and less to drink.’’ To one 
so situated it is a cheerful sight to see a green 
patch near the horizon; then to reach green till- 
age, groves and waters, wells and buckets; where 
it is his, like dead, to drink, to fling himself along- 
side some tree-trunk and to repose in the shade. 

A steamer approaches the New York Narrows 
from the open sea and takes on a pilot, though 
the harbor is in plain sight and the water smooth, 
or if it be night and a stiff breeze be blowing. 
In any event, the ship surely stops long enough 
to pick up a pilot. And now every one must 


DIVINE GUIDANCE 85 


mind him. If he directs to steer for the outside 
passage or the inshore passage, to look out for- 
ward, to heave the lead, to stop, to go forward 
at half speed, so it must all be done. Only in 
consideration of all this does he undertake to 
carry that vessel to its berth. So the Bible says, 
“The steps of a good man are ordered by the 
Lord; ”’ his steps when alone, his steps when 
with others; his steps in work, his steps in rest 
from work. 

And now what is this leading? It is God in 
one as his guide; God putting himself forth for 
this one, acting before him and in him. Asa 
vine creeps along frame or fence or tree, and its 
direction is the direction of that to which it holds, 
so the Christian rests upon and clings to and fol- 
lows the Lord. 

In the Psalms we read, “ He leadeth me in the 
paths of righteousness; ’”’ not all over the world, 
but in paths; not abroad in a wilderness, ridged 
like the wild sea, but in paths. I may toil slowly, 
be in sunshine or in shadow—I am in the path. 
When I raise my eyes I may not see much be- 
yond, not much near or in the distance, but I am 
in the path and he is leading me. In his leading 
in the path he is like a lantern in the dark, to 
make our way plain to us. He who is “ great 
in counsel”’ will help us to do or say what is fit- 
ting, will help to manage any business or avert 


86 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


any evil. In the great and terrible wilderness of 
old, storms of sand clouded and bewildered, rep- 
tiles stung unto the death, men pined with hun- 
ger and thirst. Still God “ guided his people in 
the wilderness like a flock.”” Over and over it is 
alluded to by psalmist and prophet, and to-day 
it is over all the earth, and a part of the gospel 
for all mankind. On account of these paths the 
prayers of Scripture and the prayers of all saints 
are at times for the divine leading, and the praises 
of Scripture and the praises of all saints are at 
times because of it. 

And this leading is suited to each. To climb 
the Alps needs one kind of a guide, to track the 
desert another, to sail the sea another, to lead a 
soul another, and to lead one’s own life still an- 
other. 

Then, too, he ever leads aright; in the storm 
aright, in the waters aright, in the dark aright; 
whether the way be in sunshine or in shadow, 
whether easy to understand or hard, still aright; 
whether by strange and crooked and zigzag paths, 
still aright. Sometimes the way shines clear, like 
a silver stream ; and sometimes it has to be picked 
out step by step, through bushes and grass and 
creeping things. But whether down in the val- 
leys or over the hills, whether in green grass or 
through the thick woods, in all our goings he 
leads aright. We may be in a strange path, in 


DIVINE GUIDANCE 87 


the night with the moon down, but we need 
dread neither man nor beast, nor to get lost; we 
may be weary in body and sad in soul, having to 
go on and on, but One goes before with a golden — 
lamp in his hand to light us on our way. And 
so it is ever with us as we get into darkness: the 
obscurity and gloom are irradiated; we are sim- 
ply to follow the Lord whithersoever he leadeth, 
and though his way may be in the sea he is to be 
trusted, and wonderful shall be the surprise in the 
end. 

We read, “ This God is our God forever and 
ever: he will be our guide even unto death.” 
This leading is even unto the end. Down even 
to old age is the word trustworthy; down even 
into the death-valley is it true; “Thou art with 
me.” The dying members of Christ pass away 
in their great peace because of their great light; 
they say, ‘‘ Lord, now lettest thou thy servant 
depart in peace: for mine eyes have seen thy 
salvation.”” Multitudes of whom earth retains no 
trace—aught more than of the flowers that spring 
in the valleys—have walked in the light, and, by 
the vision led, gone over to the bright land. He 
leadeth me! I feel it, I love it, and the spirit of 
it is a daily comfort. 

I turn to the scope of the leading. It influ- 
ences perception and judgment as to what is good 
or bad in itself, does it with or without means, 


88 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


It exercises the same influence in matters secu- 
lar, prudential, trivial; gives discrimination in im- 
pulses, providences, counsel; gives a better judg- 
ment by giving a better heart. The Lord will 
lead us in everything. He will lead as to place: 
Abraham was called to leave his native land. He 
will lead as to general calling: Matthew was called 
from the seat of custom to bean apostle. He will 
lead as to time: if you are to persuade one, or 
are to do a difficult thing, look attentively for the 
signal when. So our Saviour did in the matter 
of offering himself up. On the one hand you are 
not to run before, or on the other to lag behind, 
but ever to move exactly with God. Thus doing, 
you shall have as little as possible of weariness 
and disappointment; shall have as much as pos- 
sible of joy and success. The Lord-leads as to 
manner. So we follow the guide; follow un- 
hesitatingly, cheerfully, cordially ; move when he 
moves and stop when he stops. The Lord sees 
for us in little matters and in large; he leads to 
just those people and counsels and ways that suit 
our occasion and necessity. 

Let me remark that guidance has its limita- 
tions: there is an imaginary guidance. 

No guidance can clash with reason, can contra- 
dict it—either its beliefs or its logic. No man 
can or must escape these. They are irresistible, 


DIVINE GUIDANCE 89 


and no man can be divinely guided to doubt them 
or go against them. 

No guidance can clash with our radical moral 
convictions: as that God is good and sin is bad, — 
as that we are to be just and good. There is no 
guidance that permits wrong. 

No guidance can clash with the Bible, can 
contradict it. Truth cannot be inconsistent, con- 
tradictory. What the Bible justifies we must 
justify ; what the Bible condemns we must con- 
demn. There is no direction against using the 
means of grace, or to shut out most of the pro- 
cesses and activities of Christian life, and pas- 
sively wait for the Holy Ghost. 

Guidance is not absolute. Time may be re- 
quired to give it. We are told to grow in know- 
ledge. Again, infirmities affect apprehension, af- 
fection, and judgment; create error and mistake. 
Paul apologized to the Council. Heand Barnabas 
differed in view. For some cause the Christian 
Jews had not the light of the Christian Gentiles. 
A weak conscience, a feeble faith, little discern- 
ment, lessen the power to receive the leading. 


CHARI Kaecl 
HELPS TO GUIDANCE. 


THERE are external helps to guidance, a num- 
ber of distinct ways by which the divine counsel 
is made known. Nature is one way. Natural 
laws direct us even as they direct moving seas 
and flowing streams, even as they guide the wild 
goose, the swallow, and every migratory bird in 
their appointed times and various ways. Our 
sex, Our age, our occupation, direct us. Natural 
constitution directs us to home and industry and 
society. Nature, talent, taste, often tell what we 
are fit for. 

Providence is a guide. Various providences 
made it clear to Jacob to move his family into 
Egypt. The situation of certain churches led 
Paul to write certain epistles. Opportunities 
providentially occur; ways providentially open, 
other ways are providentially closed. Here, then, 
is another inlet of knowledge. Yet God some- 
times has his way in the sea; providences do not 
indicate his mind. The prosperity of the wicked, 

go 


HELPS TO GUIDANCE QI 


the adversity of the good, are in a sense provi- 
dential. The early church seemed in much to 
have against it what we call providences. 

Again, others area guide. One’s own experi-— 
ence is good, but that of two is better, and that 
of a larger number is better still, Hence the 
value of counsel, the value of the church, the 
value of books. ‘The wider the range of expe- 
rience the surer are the generalizations. The 
world is wiser than any one man in the world. 
Knowledge, like the land, is very wide. One 
man has not been everywhere. Persons, by re- 
fusing advice, by keeping above teaching, tend 
to become empty and powerless, tend to become 
boastful and imperious, fanatical and denuncia- 
tory, and sometimes make complete shipwreck. 
Such are some enthusiasts, some dupes and de- 
luded persons. | 

To an extent, also, public opinion may often 
be heeded as God’s guide and guard for us. 
Wherefore if you would know what you ought 
to be or do, ask others in whom you can confide. 
Take counsel. They are cool and disinterested 
and yet friendly. Go slow in going against their 
judgment. At times a man is a fool who will 
not be advised by his best friends, but will go 
on according to some whim, some scruple of duty. 
He is weak where he may think that he is espe- 
cially strong. 


92 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


We are not, however, to make others entirely 
our directors—the people of our party or church 
—and live at their dictation, surrendering convic- 
tion, conscience, and manhood. The Bereans did 
not blindly accept even an apostle’s teaching, but 
searched the Scriptures, ‘whether these things 
were so.’ The opinions and feelings, the habits 
of others are by no means to be absolute guides 
forus. We encounter many timid or feeble per- 
sons, some who are ignorant or foolish or un- 
sympathetic. Their criticism is not to be our 
direction. The indolent cannot, for example, ad- 
vise the energetic, or the cowardly the coura- 
geous. While a modest man will listen to advice, 
the prophets and even our Lord did not always 
take it. It is evident that a man must believe 
somewhat in himself, in his own power to see and 
judge. Every man, also, knows himself and his 
situation best, or ought to. 

Sometimes our moods are a guide. If one 
is not in the mood, perhaps he should not at- 
tempt certain things. The heart affects the head. 
Does not a prayerful mood indicate prayer, and 
a thankful mood indicate praise? Here, then, is 
another sense by which we learn. Consult some- 
what your frame of mind, though not simply this 
by any means. But if you feel cowardly you can- 
not very well do a brave deed; if cold you cannot 
very well doa feeling thing. About some duties 


HELPS TO GUIDANCE 93 


try to catch yourself when you feel like it, and 
you will be sensible. 

Again, instinct sometimes guides us. There 
is a sensitive state of soul that helps to a cor-- 
rect judgment about a person’s character or his 
intention, or about a situation; or a young per- 
son instinctively takes a certain right course and 
avoids a certain wrong one. Sometimes we are 
moved to a person, a way, a movement, as the 
eagle is moved to the cliff or the swallow to the 
barn. 

So, also, sometimes the Spirit acts directly, acts 
without messengers or an outer voice, but by an 
inner, after other methods fail or even when they 
are not tried. One may be urged from within to 
go back or to go on; to turn to the right hand or 
to the left. The divine choice is indicated by a 
mental pressure, the impulse seemingly one’s own 
and yet another’s. This way—that of immediate 
suggestion—has come with the experience or 
observation of believers. It is an irregular and 
mysterious prompting to do or to avoid doing; 
it is a perception. Peter perceived in Cornelius 
a saint, and in Simon Magus a child of the devil. 
The interference is self-evident, or the event jus- 
tifies it; or a sense of divine approval with the 
thought of yielding, and of disapproval with the 
thought of not yielding. Sometimes probability 
grows faint, still the assurance continues. So the 


94. THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


observant person watches for impressions, for even 
here may be a revealing of God. 

But impressions are very fallible, very liable to 
error. With only them one might easily make 
grave mistakes; might become a false teacher 
and guide; might get to do muchas he pleased; 
might come to think less of Bible and church and 
more of his own experience. He might be es- 
pecially hard to correct, to convince. Such per- 
sons are especially immovable if in error, and in- 
corrigible if in misconduct. We are to “ try the 
spirits.”’ We must examine whether these things 
are so. Search the Scriptures as did the men of 
Berea. Impressions are very liable to abuse. 
Many are the melancholy instances of this, One 
is not to be led by mere sights and sounds, by 
strange and momentary feelings. These may 
come from disordered nerves or by contagion 
from other persons. One line of evidence is as 
follows: true impulses rather restrain agitation ; 
they call into play perception and reflection: we 
pause and think, we read the Bible, we take 
Christian counsel, we watch providence. True 
impulse permits to give time and attention to 
itselfi—time, at least, to pray. ‘He that be- 
lieveth shall not make haste.”’ 

In conclusion, so we may say, as said George 
Fox, “Thus traveled I in the Lord’s service as 
he led me on.”” There are ways by which, amid 


HELPS TO GUIDANCE 95 


the great play and confusion of things, we may 
adjust ourselves. 

I turn to the conditions of guidance. One 
is study. It is a part of our probation to learn — 
even our duties and privileges by study. It ts 
a spiritual art, this of the conduct and enjoy- 
ment of life. It is a spiritual art to find the di- 
vine direction; and art is acquired by study and 
practice. ‘Then shall ye know, if ye follow on 
to know the Lord.” Here is a ship approach- 
ing the coast. The officer of the deck traces the 
lights, he takes the soundings, and so he correctly 
tracks his way in the trackless sea. Here is an 
expedition to the Arctic regions. The men in 
charge study maps and charts; study currents 
and tides and drifts; study ice and the means of 
travel uponice. A similar attention is necessary 
in moral and spiritual life, and a similar security 
and correctness of course accompanies such atten- 
tion. 

Another condition is watchfulness. The hunter, 
regardful of what experience has taught him, 1s 
observant. Be it cold or wind or rain or fair 
weather, he is watching. So do you watch for 
the divine leading. 

Sometimes, too, you are to wait. “Rest in the 
Lord, and wait patiently for him.” You may 
need time to take the matter into more careful 
consideration. Or perhaps things must settle, or 


96 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


your own mind must settle, or a certain way 
must be prepared. 

Another condition is trust for the leading. We 
must keep sensitive to the Spirit, and trust him 
to lead us when and where he will. By trust 
comes receptivity to guidance. We must refer 
our lot to God to have him establish it; our doc- 
trine and our duty to have him make them clear; 
our works to do them in and for him; and in 
this trust we shall have him with us. Not a 
stream we shall meet but there shall be a boat to 
carry us across. Awake or asleep, trust him from 
whom you are never parted. A steamer may be 
in the midst of the sea, the wide waste of swelling 
waters in every direction, yet that steamer’s pas- 
sengers are in good spirits. Nothing whatever is 
in sight but the sky above and the water around, 
yet the vessel cuts through the water in glorious 
style. The crew take watch and watch about. 
The compass and the observations taken are 
trusted by the officers, and in turn the officers 
are trusted by the passengers. In climbing the 
high Alps one takes a guide; he does not go 
rambling by himself, following up this ridge or 
climbing that rock. No, he just follows on. The 
top of the mountain may be out of sight most of 
the way, yet the guide is trusted. So, “ Trust in 
the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto 
thine own understanding.” We must feel that 


HELPS TO GUIDANCE 97 


God is watching over us, even though for a sea- 
son we do not hear from him. Nor should we 
distrust any light we do receive should it be 
against what we had supposed would be the 
light, would be the truth or the way, the duty 
or the privilege. Had the builders of Babel 
trusted to the divine direction they would never 
have been led to commit the great folly they did 
and make the great failure they made. 

Another conditionis prayer. ‘‘ If any man lack 
wisdom, let him ask of God.” ‘ No man,’’ says 
‘Emerson, “ ever prayed heartily without learning 
something.”’ Prayer brings one into a docile 
frame of mind, and prayer brings the guiding 
Spirit. You pray that the Bible or a providence 
ora friend may guide you. The psalmist prayed, 
“Show me thy ways, O Lord; teach me thy 
paths.” Paul prayed that God would give unto 
the Ephesians the spirit of wisdom. Action may 
seem closed, resources exhausted: you must go 
to God. Tell him that you do not know what 
to do; look up with faith and expectation. 

Fulfilling these conditions our course is like a 
river. Sometimes the river is walled up on either 
side; again, the walls spread out and inclose a 
large space, and we are able to see the windings 
and direction for some distance. All along it is 
ours to say, “Thou shalt guide me with thy 
counsel, and afterward receive me to glory.” 


CHAP LERIEX TI: 
THE INDWELLING MAKES FREE. 


WHEN the Lord appears, there is an opening, 
a lifting up, a widening of the gates; a removal 
of hindrance, limitation, and restraint. The spir- 
itual person has very especial freedoms. His 
originality would lead us to expect this, his posi- 
tiveness, his continual yea, his continual stretch- 
ing above and beyond, his going on to fullest 
development in every direction. 

And s0, indeed, it is: we are “called unto lib- 
erty ’ with all its flourishing life. ‘Where the 
Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty:” in that 
person or place or time; in that act of prayer or 
speaking or preaching or counseling. Christ says, 
“If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free 
indeed.” Even as little birds escape their ene- 
mies by frequenting stone walls and low bushes 
by the roadside, so do Christians escape by hid- 
ing in the Lord. The children are free in many 
senses: 

There is freedom from disbelief in spiritual 
realities. We have “ the evidence of things not 

98 


THE INDWELLING MAKES FREE 99 


seen”; in our faith our ideals are seen to be real: 
as though a soul were breathed into the perfect 
statue; as though eternal realities were behind 
the paintings hung by imagination on the walls 
of the soul. Weare of a free nation and we have 
power to see. 

There is freedom from ignorance, for we are 
illuminated. Though often knowing but little, 
and needing to pray to Him who is the Light of 
the world, yet we have knowledge and wisdom. 
Ours is no zigzag course, no stop, and no retreat, 
but a constant advance, like that of a planet round 
the sun. There is freedom from gross error and 
mistake. The way is laid out for us. 

There is freedom from discomfort and discon- 
solateness, for we have the comforts and consola- 
tions of the Holy Ghost. Our life is really rooted 
not in the earthly, but in the heavenly. Our 
human unfolding is accompanied by a spiritual 
unfolding and a divine manifestation. The Spirit 
takes the things of Christ and shows them unto 
us. He is our Comforter. Christ has done much 
to free the world of sorrow. 

There is freedom from the law as the rule of 
our standing with God, and as the way of eternal 
life. There is an entrance into the life of faith, 
the life of the saved; a life in the mercy of God, 
a life in union with God. Faith is the surest and 
nearest way to heaven for such as we. 


100 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


There is freedom from the bitterness of sin— 
its uneasiness, discomfort, self-contempt, remorse, 
misery. The contention is all ended, the confu- 
sion, the despondency, the alarm, the spirit of 
heaviness. Christ has done his work, and the 
person is in this sense ‘ free from sin.”’ 

There is freedom from the binding power of 
sin, “the law of sin,” its absolute bondage; there 
is redemption here. The Spirit supports a life 
where goodness is dominant. To such measure 
of spiritual glory has one come. Sometimes be- 
setting sin tears us from our holding and casts us 
adrift on the open sea. Now when appetite or 
desire rages, then for strength to cling to the 
naked rock and stand the fury of storm and break- 
ers. The strength is in him who sets free from 
the law of sin and death; is in his keeping us 
watchful, prayerful, and in the use of all the 
means of grace. ‘ Whosoever abideth in him 
sinneth not;” sin is not his habit, his dispo- 
sition. 

There is freedom from legality. There is an 
instinctive, a self-moving impulse, the impulse 
of an inward life. The Epistle to the Galatians 
clearly, emphatically sets forth the liberty of the 
gospel in contrast to the slavery of the law; 
clearly shows that the gospel attitude of soul 
in-the matter of obedience is freedom—not free- 
dom from obedience, but freedom zz obedience, 


THE INDWELLING MAKES FREE IOI 


This is freedom from friction and tension in obe-- 
dience. It is like the sun shining on the cold, 
wet soil, sweetening and warming it; making it 
elastic. So the Spirit shines in upon the soul, 
and the old state is known no more. In our 
evil self is it that “strait is the gate, and narrow 
is the way, that leadeth unto life’; but in our 
good self all this is changed. The waves of the 
lake follow and follow with no effort; the cur- 
rent of the river sweeps quietly onward. The 
person naturally, rejoicingly observes the law, 
there being no bondage whatever. The com- 
mand is not arbitrarily imposed or painfully re- 
ceived, but willingly, even with desire and de- 
light. So lives he who lives the life according to 
Thesopirit. 

There is law, and very much of it. You are not 
free of certain laws of health or home or social 
life or state or church: this is to be a planet off 
its axis, or out of its course, running wild. The 
crystal must keep its shape, the jewel its struc- 
ture. There is in this liberty no exemption from 
truth or honesty, purity, or any other morality ; 
no exemption from prayer, reading the Bible, and 
the public ordinances of religion: piety consist- 
ing in mere contemplation, or in passively wait- 
ing for the Holy Ghost. There is no emanci- 
pation from righteous law, though it has ceased 
to be a foreign law, a command only; one from 


102 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


without and disliked; a constraint. It has be- 
come a force within; the seeming harshness and 
severity are gone. One instinctively, spontane- 
ously goes and comes, does this or that. He is 
asked and he is willing; freely and with enjoy- 
ment he consents. His being goes forth with a 
free energy, a whole-hearted devotion. 

We are toward God as children to a parent. 
Our spirit is not that of the bondsman, one of 
fear; not that of the hired servant, one of service 
for pay; but that of the child and the heir, that 
of the wife for the husband, that of the husband 
for the wife. We are under no yoke. We are 
in a family relationship: “no more servants, but 
sons.’ The only bond is a bond of love; duty 
is not a trial but a pleasure. 

We are also free from legality in compensat- 
ing God. We are free to bear his name; free 
to receive his protection and support; free to 
receive, with no obligation to give an equivalent 
inreturn. We take all that God gives; and with 
no more embarrassment than a child has in re- 
ceiving a new dress from its mother. It is not 
a matter as between strangers or acquaintances. 

Further, there is freedom from anxiety about 
things which cannot be helped: about one’s life 
or health or estate or good name or success or 
support; or about one’s family or church or land, 
We cannot go beyond our strength to alter mat- 


THE INDWELLING MAKES FREE 103 


ters. We do not attempt the impossible, do not 
fight the whole system of things. We leave this 
battle to God. And so we are free from restless- 
ness, brooding, the unhappy stirring up of our- 
selves. One does what he can and does not 
worry. 

We have fearful states of Nature: her power 
to destroy is realized and dreaded. We have 
Neweicariule cold). her awiuljesultry theat; yher 
earthquakes, tempests, floods, and droughts. We 
have human events: war, pestilence, prevailing 
sickness, the death of friends. Now is the time 
to trust the Lord. The Arabian shepherds have 
towers of refuge from robbers, and when in dan- 
ger climb by a rope to a door half-way up the 
tower and then draw up the rope. No maraud- 
ing Arab then can scale that wall. So the be- 
liever has a high tower. 

You have the cares of an invalid, of a house- 
hold, of some work, laid on you. As each thorn- 
bush catches a bit of wool from the sheep that 
passes, so does each care snatch something from 
you; every trouble takes a nip. You are an- 
noyed by things that catch on. You are like the 
sheep the farmer turns into a foul clearing. The 
wool gets ragged, gets spotted with every seed 
that by prickles or hooks can attach itself. You 
have a living to get, and perhaps at odds. Your 
fields are not always productive or your trees 


104 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


fruitful; the seasons vary with the years. Still 
industry can make an Eden out of a desert; can 
produce in the wilderness neat spots of garden 
and field, choice roots and grasses, grains and 
fruits. With skill you find the skies your reser- 
voir; every element a help—heat and cold, wet 
and dry, soil and air. ‘Jf God so clothe the 
erass of the field, . . . shall he not much more 
clothe you?”’ Let him possess you, and you 
shall be like the light-winged bird to live in the 
air, to get above the dreary and even dismal 
worry; you shall quit that dark and cheerless 
round, and circle in the sky. 

So there is some freedom from wear and tear 
and care. One is no slave, no vassal to such; he 
bears high his head in their presence. By inher- 
itance and by possession he is lord; and he flings 
off all such who attempt to lord it over him. The 
wild grape-vine lies along the ground, rears and 
climbs with twisting form the high trees, swings 
from limb to limb, even from tree to tree, and in 
its great vigor is free of blast or mildew, of wind 
or winter's cold, of bug or slug or rooting hog. 
So luxuriant and free is the Christian. If under 
attack, he defends his case or he leaves it to the 
ereat Defender; if overcome, the suffering is 
borne in the joy and peace of salvation. 

Thus the Christian sits under his own vine and 
fig-tree and no one makes him afraid. He has 


THE INDWELLING MAKES FREE 105 


spiritual liberty ; his bonds are broken; his ene- 
mies and oppressors have gone forever. This 
is “the opening of the prison to them that are 
bound.” Here is the night all round us, a great 
black wall about us; we hemmed in on every 
side, isolated; all is lost to sight. Freedom is 
the daylight. Here is winter, snow stretching 
away to an unknown extent, a thousand miles 
perhaps. An arctic continent, not a single 
flower, the water frozen, the earth frozen, the 
cold severe; all life imprisoned, locked up. Now 
we cross the narrow but deep chasm of spring, 
and nature is liberated, her chains are all broken 
off, the waters are open, the fields thawed and 
fertile and green, the flowers spreading their 
cups and their beauties, and summer stretching 
far away, eastward and westward. So is it with 
the life in the Spirit. Those in this escape all 
slaveries. They are emancipated, for the year 
of jubilee is come. All rigid bondage is over; 
a free, animated, glowing life is theirs. God's 
people are a free people. Such is the power of 
the divine indwelling; such the deliverance of . 
God’s perfect love; such is salvation. Such is 
the felicity of myself, of my friends in the Lord, 
of the whole Christian communion. 

Positively, this freedom is the freedom of the 
highest life. As life grows substantial and worthy, 
it grows in liberty of choice. As life grows from 


106 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


the crystal to the plant, from the plant to the 
animal, from the animal to the man, and from 
man natural to man spiritual, there is an ever-in- 
creasing expression of liberty. The life of thought 
and feeling is freer than that of all the plants and 
flowers which diversify the landscape; than that 
of all the sensitive animal kingdoms of fish or 
bird or quadruped. ‘There is in the Spirit the 
full possession of one’s own self and of the Spirit 
himself. Very wide is the range. One is free 
for guidance and comfort, truth, hope, and love; 
free to pray and praise and serve. The young 
and some of the old delight in shows and spec- 
tacles and the whole circle of public exhibitions. 
With pleasure the traveler views the magnificent 
ice-plains of the Alps, the snowy ranges, the peaks 
everywhere. So he who is in God has a vision 
near at hand and a glimpse now and then afar of 
scenes and objects of delight. His is “ the liberty 
of the glory of the sons of God.” 

We know that the lower laws that enter higher 
spheres are frequently feebler there; the laws 
of physics in chemistry, the laws of chemistry in 
organic life. Competition, so active among the 
animals, is far less active among men, being con- 
ditioned by justice, brotherhood, humanity. In- 
creasing life has increasing power over the lower 
life accompanying. There is a displacement, a 
neutralizing the lower forces in presence of the 


THE INDWELLING MAKES FREE 107 


higher. Among freemen many restraints cease to 
exist—not that there is transgression of the law, 
but the law is in part taken away. Of course 
truth and justice and honor are never violated ; 
yet many a gate is unlocked. 

By a kind of play the spirit in the germ of a 
plant seizes of air and water and earth, and builds 
and shapes its own chosen plant. And the plant 
in its full power takes of that which shall make 
substance delicate, and color blue or yellow, and 
shapes its own chosen blossom, Similarly is it 
that he who is in the Spirit reaches at last to the 
freedom of play—I do not mean levity, the mere 
caprice of fancy, life but a making merry, the 
Christian a mere thistle-down, a brilliant butter- 
fly most wonderfully gotten up in colors and spots 
and stripes, fluttering in splendor from flower- 
cup to flower-cup, seeking ever its own pleasure. 
I mean more than those recreations which are but 
as the decorations and adornments of life. In the 
processes of nature and grace one reaches a play- 
impulse deep down, one of our possibilities and 
glories. It is to go after a free fashion, to have © 
great power to pass up and down, to be so free 
that only the sovereign and supreme laws are 
over one. 

“Tn my Father’s house are many mansions.” 
In a sense no door there is ever shut. The spir- 
itual world is eminently a free world; it permits 


108 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


a coming in from all directions and a going out 
in all directions. ‘The city lieth foursquare,” and 
on each side are three gates. The service of God 
is a free service ;+ the praise, the fellowship, the 
going and coming. It is all like the rising mists 
from lake and valley under the morning sun; like 
the clouds slowly floating across the blue sky. 
There is in it a spontaneous impulse like that of 
the bird in the early morning or in the evening 
twilight, perched on the topmost branch of some 
tall tree and pouring out some delightful melody. 

He who is filled with the divine indwelling is 
in freedom, as at a festival or on a holiday ; 
elastic is he, with ever a play of thought and 
imagination, a freshness of feeling. He is like 
the painter in his inspiration, pure of eye, free 
of hand, wide of range, to plot earth’s forms and 
strike on her colors. He is within the gates of 
the city of life, where the holy feet go and re- 
turn at will in perpetual festival. We have the 
winds of all seas and coasts and lands, blowing 
from every quarter and through all regions of 
the air, now in gentle zephyrs, now in gales and 
whirlwinds; moving the sands of the shore and 
the desert; drifting the dust of city street and 
country road, freely do they sweep back and 
forth over the earth. So freely, though not so 
aimlessly, come and go the thoughts and feel- 
ings, the states and activities of believers. 


THE INDWELLING MAKES FREE 109 


There is a swing and a beauty in the great 
planets going over their immense ranges in space, 
diffusing light and splendor as they roll. Now 
here are other heavenly bodies which have a like 
freedom and beauty of swing. Persons that are 
freer than the rolling waters, freer than the wav- 
ing grain-fields; free like light and heat and elec- 
tricity. Nor gas, nor smoke, nor cloud is any 
other than a rudimentary emblem of the freedom 
of a spiritual person. The crawling worm, the 
aimless butterfly, the balanced hawk, are not so 
free as he; when we shall cease to be subject 
to certain great natural ordinances that waste 
and cause fatigue and distress, stagnation and 
death; when in the eternal life and out of the 
temporal our deliverance from the evil of the 
temporal shall be complete, and our entrance 
into the good of it shall also be complete. 


CHAP LE Ramexcy. 
GOD IN US COMFORTS. 


THE great God of old, he who made the sun, 
moon, and stars, the God of to-day, is our refuge, 
a very present help in time of trouble. He is the 
friend of all, great or little, wise or foolish, rich or 
poor. No burden but he will help carry. Of him 
it is true that the government is on his shoulder. 
He bears our sicknesses and sorrows, our cares 
and even our sins. Many persons have in him 
found a resting-place in every kind of drift: have 
in him stood unmoved in every kind of shock, 
“Trust ye in the Lord forever: for in the Lord 
Jehovah is everlasting strength.” 

Another stream comes down from the moun- 
tain, in this divine helpfulness in trouble. The 
God of nature puts some roots of the desert so 
deep down that they do not feel the scorching 
sun, and has formed them with tubers to hold in 
store moisture and nutriment in the long droughts. 
So may it be with you. There is a plant in the 
South African desert: the stalk of the plant is 


small and the leaf narrow; but below the surface 
IIo 


GOD IN US COMFORTS IT! 


the plant has a great tuber filled with fluid that. 
nourishes the plant or refreshes him who finds 
it. Even so in sorrow we are to go down to the 
larger life, that of the living God within us. Said 
the psalmist, ‘“My flesh and my heart faileth: 
but God is the strength of my heart, and my por- 


) 


tion forever.’ In our difficulties, infirmities, dis- 
appointments, sorrows, desolations, we must ap- 
prehend and appropriate the living God as our 
strength and our deliverer. He helps us more 
than does nature or time or human sympathy ; 
he is a mighty God for feeble souls; he reaches 
the tears and the heart-break ; he makes sad eyes 
to shine again. It was in trouble and darkness 
that Jacob had his vision of the angels of light. 
It was when his home and hope were gone that 
the heavens opened and their inhabitants came 
down. So also with us may it be when we are 
weary and in feebleness, when we stumble or 
stop or go along a stony way painfully. Oh, these 
mighty works of Jesus, redeeming from all evil! 
Christ is as rivers of water in a dry place, in 
a barren, desolate place; no moisture, almost 
no soil, rocks and sand. His soothing, inspiring 
influence comes full and abundant; this when you 
walk in very gloomy places; this when you are 
in pain or infirmity or affliction. He says, “ Be- 
cause I live, ye shall live also.” He whose heart ° 
is very tender and whose knowledge is very great 


19 bd THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


—he is your helper. You are in a dreadful desert. 
The hills are in the distance; as yet you can dis- 
tinguish neither village, field, nor forest: but 
travel on, and the whole hill-country, the whole 
mountain land, shall open up with flocks and herds 
and human habitations. You see through a glass 
darkly. This is affliction, and in it you must go 
to the God of all comfort. In the Lord you are 
to abide and wait. He is your helper here. 


““ His oath, his covenant, his blood, 
Support me in the whelming flood. 
When all around my soul gives way, 
He then is all my hope and stay.” 


One says, “ By thee have I been holden up 
from the womb.” The climbing plants with 
their delicate stems have no self-support, yet 
often they carry themselves very high, because 
they take hold of some tree or wall of building, 
and, holding fast, they grow. Tropical plants 
will climb to the top of the tallest trees of the 
forest, so will the wild grape-vine of our woods; 
and there expand in the sunshine; so the Chris- 
tian. 

In all our sorrowing we have a sympathy of 
which we are too ignorant; we have a consola- 
tion not of sentiment—the mere intoxication of 
an hour—but rational and substantial. These 
deep things of suffering lead us to the deep 


GOD IN US COMFORTS HA 


things of God. In him the tears under our eye- 
lids find utterance and relief. He encircles us 
and has no distance from us. The center of 
creation, he is at the heart of the Christian. 
The throne, the power, and the revelation of God 
are within his worshipers. His Spirit, sympa- 
thetic and marvelous in resource, is ours; the 
great helper of the soul in its weakness, its cry- 
ing, and its struggles. We may in this sad 
world, now and then, here and there, have to 
lean on an everlasting arm, have even the ten- 
der mercies of Him whose “tender mercies are 


) 


over all his works.”’ ‘There are things of sorrow 
which must be; but of one thing be sure: the 
path of sorrow is a path to God. When I am 
under the wearing, tearing, destroying activities 
of nature and man, I am within reach of a God 
uplifting and recreative, calling and proving 
himself the God of all comfort. Never, perhaps, 
does he work so willingly and with such tender- 
ness as when with his child who has been made 
the victim of a natural sorrow; so unavoidable 
the evil, so helpless the situation, and so sensi- 
tive the stricken one. There was comfort for 
the ancient prophets; there was comfort for 
Jesus in his exposed, trying, suffering, and work- 
ing life. 

And every Christian can have the comfort. A 
few great bodies go round the sun, but for one 


te THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


such there are ten thousand small ones that go in 
equal circle and with equal exactness. We name 
the former, but the latter in their prodigious num- 
bers are not named, and, for the most part, not 
noticed. Now these latter represent the most of 
us persons. It is not in wide fields and great 
deeds that our life is spent, but in narrow fields 
and little deeds. Yet, while the flowers are myr- 
iads, not one is insignificant; while the separate 
key-notes are many in an anthem, not one is use- 
less in the rising and falling harmony. So the 
believer of a very humble sort is as much before 
God as if as high as David. There be as many 
tender, patient souls, as many noble spirits, in the 
lowly walks of life as in the high. Yet God’s true 
people go up to him from all walks, go up out of 
every nation, kindred, tongue, and people. Lives 
equally faithful, equally sainted, are in all spheres ; 
and lives equally cared for of God, equally full of 
the divine consolations. 

Living in the Spirit there is comfort for us from 
this life—its spiritual and life side, its truly and 
permanently bright side, its heavenly side. Let 
us pass beyond these destructive forces of nature, 
these saddening forces of man, and go over into 
that spiritual world, which can make a goodly 
part even of nature and the world to comfort us, 
and, when these forces are trial and destruction, 
can bring to help us the forces of a higher and 


GOD IN US COMFORTS 115 


better world. In mere nature man is an insect. 
in the grass under the great sky: a wet week, a 
boy going a-fishing, and the insect is no more— 
great Nature does not even wink. What are 
species of animals or generations of persons to 
her? But the laws of grace are over the laws of 
nature. 

God sends spiritual comfort from things here 
by many a king’s highway. We read in the 
Bible all about such comforts. We hear ser- 
mons about them. We find them here and there 
in our grand and various Christian literature. 
Theology is full of them. We sing ourselves 
into comfort in our songs. We have slow-com- 
ing or sudden, open or secret, refreshments; 
pleasant thoughts and feelings springing up and 
continuing, until over the brown landscape many 
a field is green with the coming spring. At one 
moment in a cloudy day a spot bursts out in the 
dreary landscape and we say that there the sun 
is shining; so with us now and then the open 
heavens around us shine: illuminated and filled, 
like a palace we stand. 

The great kingdom of grace is in every part 
a kingdom of comfort. The divine perfections 
give comfort. There is comfort in the divine 
freedom. God may be under some rule of his 
own, but if he is he has not revealed it. He may 
have some rule that is uttered in heaven, but if so 


116 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


it has not been told upon earth. For ever and 
everywhere he is free, except of limits set by him- 
self—free to combine and construct, free to gov- 
ern, guide,and redeem. There is comfort in the 
divine righteousness, that God is the greatest 
moral being, that his government is along moral 
lines if any government is, that his counsels and 
conduct harmonize with the highest known right. 
There is comfort in the divine faithfulness, fixed- 
ness, unchangeableness; in God’s adherence to 
his word and his promises. There is comfort in 
the divine love and helpfulness and fatherhood; 
in the divine redeeming love, and in ‘‘ the love of 
Christ, which passeth knowledge.”” The Spirit 
comforts by giving soul-satisfying views of Him 
“a brother born for adversity.’’ For as 
in our loneliness and bitterness we walk the frozen 
swamp, as the wintry wind strikes us and we heed 
it not, the words come to us, “I will not leave 
you comfortless: I will come to you.”” We are 
in the light of his countenance; we are in the 
border-land of heaven. 


who is 


There is comfort in reading the Bible; comfort 
in the Lord’s day; comfort in the ordinances of 
divine worship. There is comfort when with spir- 
itual persons, in giving and receiving: it is a fore- 
taste of heaven. There is comfort in doing a 
piece of specially Christian work. Many are the 
persons who, full of doubts and fears, have gone 


GOD IN US COMFORTS U7 


with a message of life to certain others, and in 
the going God has met them, “and filled them 
with the joy of their message.” It became true, 
“He that watereth shall be watered himself.” 
With this watering, the world is a garden of de- 
lightful work; a place of waters and flowers and 
fruits; a place of friends in the Lord. 

All these spiritual things are permanently here, 
are within reach, and, in part, to be ministers of 
the divine goodness; to uplift and carry us for- 
ward, invigorated and hopeful. In any of these 
paths from heaven or to heaven “the Sun of 
righteousness has risen upon us with healing in 
his wings.” 

God gives us comfort from the life to come. 
This world is a shore on which a wide and heavy 
sea rolls us up, us mortals, and after a little 
sweeps us back; an eternal salt sea that soon or 
late shall send its waters over all of human life. 
Yet with all this perishable, we are imperishable ; 
it is only our clothing that is flesh, and our sur- 
rounding that is nature. And in the sadness, in 
our loss in the transient world, we have the glad- 
ness in our gain in the permanent world. The 
Spirit takes us to the mount, to Nebo, and shows 
us the Promised Land. Earthly ease and satisfac- 
tion do not so give us vision. Looking forward 
has some warrant in a prophetic instinct, more 
watrant in a spiritual state, and full warrant in 


118 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


the Bible. See how God comforted his mourn- 
ing people of old by happy visions of the future. 
See how the Lord comforts his greater and nearer 
people by pointing them in the New Testament 
to his coming again, and to times of restitution. 
Here, deep in the continent, I see not the ocean 
that flows and roars around its edge, but the very 
water of these streams is going straight to it; 
and could I rise high enough I should see this. 
So while in this world I see not the ‘sea of glass 
like unto crystal” that flows and touches all round 
the world and is “before the throne.’’ Because 
the future is told to us in negatives and pictured 
to us in images, and is different from the drama 
of nature and of society in which we are, it is not 
unreal; it is not an ideal reflection of this world, 
the play of its shadows on the darkness of eter- 
nity. It is real, though of it “ eye hath not seen.”’ 
The fish knows nothing of the birds, the waters 
understand not the land, and this world under- 
stands not the next; and yet these exist. Once 
in the morning, in a winter’s thaw, I stood hea- 
vily coated and covered at my gate, when sud- 
denly I was in another latitude. The sun hap- 
pened to come out, and it shone from the far 
south upon the river flowing before me in full 
banks, with ice-cakes and snow-spots. For a 
little while the sullenness of nature passed, the 
foul weather, the vague sky, the lines of trees 


GOD IN US COMFORTS 119 


along the nearer bank, the tawny river sweeping 
on southward; I stood in the summer. I telf7as 
I turned away, I shall have to wait many weeks 
before I shall see the reality, but I shall see it. 

When, sorrowing Christian, you at last are 
driven out of this earthly mansion because it is 
too out of repair to hold you longer; when its 
walls fail, totter, and fall, under some wind of 
heaven, shall you still have a home? Yes—‘“a 
home not made with hands, eternal in the hea- 
vens.'’ Whence came Moses and Elias to talk 
with Jesus? Where did Jesus go when he as- 
cended? To that place have gone many friends. 
In those mansions are doors which ours have en- 
tered whose bodies have been carried through 
our doorways. We must not look too much 
upon the face pallid in death, upon the coffin and 
the grave. Fix and fix again, woman and child 
and strong man, your attention upon Him who 
has said, “I am the resurrection, and the life.” 
Those in the Lord go from homes of toil to man- 
sions of rest, to partings no more, to activities 
which have no pain. Of that spiritually quick- 
ened world we know not the width of its circle, 
the sweep of its experience, the form of its sub- 
stance, its clothing and adorning, the groups and 
the activities. 

In great trials you open to these great visions. 
God takes you by the hand, and says, “ Believe 


120 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


me, trust me.” And you feel a strong grasp on 
your arm; you hear a voice gentle and strong; 
you feel a presence; and though still in a mist 
you go on in hope of coming to an eternal home. 
It seems very big and a great way off, but it will 
get more definite and near. Every dear one who 
departs into it makes it more definite, makes it 
nearer. Comfort! this is a mighty and universal 
experience of the living, of the tried, and of the 
dying. It isa reality like the ocean, the air, and 
the sun—one of God’s great realities. 


CambaU ean i FQ. 
GOD IN OUR ORDINARY LIFE. 


To God nothing is little and nothing large; he 
helps build every smallest part of the house of 
- life. We need and we have the ministry of that 
which we call the weather; its alternations of heat 
and cold, of moist and dry; and on the equable 
distribution depends much of all life in plants, in 
animals, orin ourselves. In like manner, in spir- 
itual things, we need and we have the constant 
moving Spirit affecting us in every little thing. 
As life is in every one of, the spears of grass, so 
the Spirit of God is in all those small things of 
life that are down near the dust and perish in an 
hour. It can be that like the little tulips which 
bend in the breeze and smile in the sunshine, so 
the little gay and careless things of life that come 
and go quickly are not godless, but are obedient 
to the divine laws and nourished by the divine 
Spirit. Our common life spiritualized is like a 
fine church with various dark, dingy, and clouded 


windows, as seen from without; but seen from 
I2I 


I22 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


within, against the sun, grand with all precious 
colors, all sainted and angelic forms. God gives 
a point of view which magnifies. Every-day life 
may be as full of experiences of the living God as 
a psalm of old; may be “ filled with all the full- 
ness of God”’: fullness of inspirations and con- 
solations. Ever communications from heaven 
and to heaven; the sun shining and all the buds ~ 
on the trees opening; grace coming not only unto 
some states but unto all. The whole mass of steel 
is heated, the whole piece of iron is magnetized, 
the whole man inspired. 

The dominion of grace includes the whole of 
life. The prophets made it so, the Lord made 
it so, the apostles made it so, the church makes 
itso. Grace goes beyond the boundaries of Sab- 
bath, of sanctuary, into the whole life of the good 
man, filling him with its experiences all the while; 
being with him each day of all the days, each hour 
of all the hours; being with him wheresoever he 
goes, whatsoever he does, and in whatever rela- 
tions he sustains. There is no divine work with 
us that stops short of the whole life. Salvation 
is mighty enough to save through and through. 
No part of the land need be desert. It is a land 
of water—brooks and rivers over its whole range. 
This is a distinction and glory of God’s people that 
daily they have means and privileges of grace, 
daily the Spirit. Every day will the sun shine 


GOD IN OUR ORDINARY LIFE 123 


and pour down upon them its warmth. Never. 
need they be away from the sound of the surf of 
the endless sea of God. 

God is in the home; he brings a gracious 
beauty and godliness, the fragrance and air of 
paradise, into all domestic life. There is emphat- 
ically a Christian home. Even as in early times 
every family was a church, had its own religion, 
its own God, its own services, so somewhat is it 
ever. Each hearth is an altar; every head of a 
family, a priest; every member true, gentle, and 
loving. 

God is in all social relations, to make us op- 
posed to all selfishness. Paul makes Philemon 
regard Onesimus ‘‘not now as a servant, but 
above a servant, a brother beloved.” He says 


’ 


we are “members one of another,’ and so all 
injustice and unbrotherliness are not to exist. 
Again, he who is full of God is full of that soci- 
ability which gives to life so much of its bloom 
and beauty. 

God is with us in work. This ordinarily is 
subject to disorder and dishonor; it may even 
become a tyrant and destructive. Ordinarily, it 
is routine; sentiment is not in it; imagination 
is not in it; enthusiasm is not in it; at times 
cheer is not in it. But there is a secret of the 
Lord: “For brass I will bring gold.” Down 
from the heights there comes a presence to give 


124 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


to work a blessing. “ Labor is not in vain in the 
Lord.”” Labor is guided, comforted, freed, and 
helped in the Lord. God is nigh in our earthly 
calling. The word “calling” indicates called of 
God, a part of the “ high calling of God in Christ 
Jesus.” Those who are in God are generally 
much occupied. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had 
the cares of great private administration; Joseph 
and Moses, David and Daniel, had the cares of 
great public administration. 

God is with us in our vision of nature. We 
see not only nature in the light of his love and 
hope and peace, but also as having a greater fresh- 
ness, a higher beauty, a grander use; as having the 
glow and expression of the spiritual world; phys- 
ical forms and_ processes speaking of spiritual 
things; the lower glories showing the higher. 
While familiarity dulls the vision and sin blinds 
the eye, yet for the Christian the seen world is 
full of the unseen. 

God is with us in our love of art. How, asa 
rule, do his people love beauty! Especially are 
song and music theirs. The Bible is full of these, 
the church has been full, and heaven is represented 
as full. A poetical imagination runs through and 
through piety and serves much to change the 
present and make bright the future. 

Thus God is in our whole life; our light, our 
guide, our guard, our comfort, our every help. He 


GOD IN OUR ORDINARY LIFE 125 


lives in us, to reign over all the evils of our lot. . 
Where his dwelling-place is, and where his com- 
ing is, things are put into wonderful order; he 
whose earth is so beautiful makes the soul to be 
more beautiful. It is his to do “ exceeding abun- 
dantly above all that we ask or think.’ Such is 
a part of his life who breathes the long full breath 
of God. He has everywhere retaining, restrain- 
ing, uplifting force. His living is like that of the 
perfect things—no waste, no discord, no opposi- 
tion, no stunted growths. 

So life may be sanctified, spiritualized in every 
part. A light may stream ever in at the windows 
of the soul; the morning lght to fill the room 
and give surpassing cheer. As we discharge our 
various duties, views of God may be ours; views 
of providence, views of grace, views of glory; 
faith, feeling, spiritual character may be ours. 
As the sun comes from behind the cloud and 
rests upon the landscape, brightening it, so the 
glory of heaven may come upon all humble 
things here, and no place be gloomy and unin- 
viting. 

The divine presence and operation, the divine 
love and care, are with every one, are associated 
with all his down-sitting and up-rising, his go- 
ing out and coming in; are as watchful over the 
less as over the greater; to help and cheer in the 
workshop or at the plow; an unseen power to 


126 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


mark out what he shall be and where he shall go. 
“The Lord directeth his steps.” In every case 
where we put ourselves into his keeping he will 
make for us a home; of each it can be said, his 
lines have fallen to him in pleasant places, and he 
has a goodly heritage. 

So in ideal our whole life is a single blessed 
thing, a complete poem, a beautiful piece of music, 
one great accord. The Christian is all in the Lord, 
as the lordliest tree or the lowliest plant is all in 
the light; is like the flower which is ever turning 
its face to the sun. Yes, in all the dull and weary 
round of daily life we may sometimes see the 
footsteps and sometimes the face of Him who is 
very fair. We may walk with him in all the 
busy ways of life, our hearts burning within us 
all the while as did theirs who walked with him 
to Emmaus. 


GHAPEER [xv I. 
THE INDWELLING A HELP TO PLAY. 


THE play-impulse comes out in all those sports 
and games which in their times and fashions 
brighten the existence of the young. It exists 
in all groups of boys and girls, in all bodies of 
young fellows. Every one of us has his recrea- 
tions in sitting still, in reading, in walking or rid- 
ing, in calling or visiting. 

This play-impulse comes out in art. In the 
race at large, pleasure is taken in form of weapon 
and tool and building. No home so humble but 
is finer for its whitewash, its paint, its flowers. 
No people so backward but are less backward for 
their love of ornament. No people but have been 
the better for their clothing the teachings of wis- 
dom with the charms of imagination. Literature 
——that brilliant art of man’s creation—how has 
the world had of its beauties and splendors! So 
the fine arts in all their lines and schools and 
power of beauty. So Nature in all her wonder- 


ful creations in sky and waters, in field and wood. 
127 


128 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


God is not opposed to play. In the highest 
religious experience love of natural happiness 
does not lessen, much less become practically 
extinct. With some this may be so, on the prin- 
ciple that a greater passion may swallow up a less. 
Some so concentrate themselves as to be swal- 
lowed up with science or with art. Eating and 
sleeping may be easily neglected. But he who 
has the divine indwelling is vigorous and healthy 
throughout, has all the parts of his being alive. 
~ A child may be very much wrapped up in its 
mother and yet in much enjoy its playthings 
and playfellows. Yes, he who is in the Lord 
is thereby the farthest from being sickly or mor- 
bid; the farthest from having hatred or scorn of 
nature. He may have and enjoy a good table, a 
good home, a good book, a good friend. Nat- 
ural impulse is right and good, is even helpful. 
The impulse to eat is not a permitted evil—some- 
thing below abstinence from eating, below fasting 
—but is itself a duty and a blessing. The natu- 
ral world was made to be enjoyed. The denial 
of nature by saints has been an evil terrible to 
themselves and terrible to others. Nature is 
pure, nature helps spiritual life, absurd and fanat- 
ical asceticism to the contrary notwithstanding. 
Man does not sin when he plays, or become holy 
when he ceases to play. 

God favors play. It is reasonable to suppose 


THE INDWELLING A HELP TO PLAY. 129 


that when he bestows a gift he, like us, wishes to | 
see it enjoyed. This is what gifts are given for. 
God, our Maker, certainly respects the human 
nature he has made. And to use it, to rever- 
ence it, is to please and glorify him. 

God in the laws of nature favors play. It is 
an ordinance of his in all the ranks of sentient 
being from the lowest to the highest. The 
squirrel will race about the tree, will chatter on 
the limb. So in all human regions play is a 
great tendency. Only under hard stress does it 
disappear. Reasonable play is one of those things 
in which there is no vanity. It is a natural bless- 
ing; it prevents derangement of every kind; it 
helps arrangement of every kind. Now go away 
for a longer or shorter period our toils and cares; 
now we are contented and happy. Play is per- 
missible, healthful, and helpful. It brightens the 
spirits; it tones up the system; it increases the 
vigor of body, mind, and heart. It is a strong 
ally in our warfare against wear and tear, against 
disease and death. Itis one of the great mediums 
for restoring vigor to our exhausted nature. In 
our restored selves, we return to our work, again 
to get weary and dull, to be again rested and rec- 
reated, our spirits quickened in some mysterious 
manner. A thousand voices in nature call us to 
work and a thousand voices call usto play. After 
work we are to resume play and after play resume 


130 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


work. Christ has freed us from work asa slavery, 
and by nature and his power within us we can 
thoroughly lay aside work for play, and even at 
times take play into work. 

Play is helpful to the divine indwelling. Ina 
sense, human nature is the foundation of piety; 
is the base from which its graces rise. The Al- 
leghanies and the Rockies are far above the gen- 
eral floor of the land; but these immense conti- 
nental ranges are doubtless built upon a mighty 
substructure of plain; the earth’s crust there 
thicker than common. So the Lord has created 
for the heights of piety bases unusually strong. 

The supports, the elements of a good man, are 
in nature as well as in grace. Nature isa part of 
him, as well as grace. Piety is on the framework 
of nature, just as the soil is on the hard-pan and 
the rock. We wisely and well have a natural as 
well as a spiritual life. Attention to both keeps 
us sound and whole, perfect and complete. 

Those instincts which man carries in common 
with the animals are to be carried along in all 
their strength in the progress of the race; though 
lower in a sense, are not to be expelled by any 
higher. The relationship he sustains to the brute 
kingdom is never to cease. His animal nature 
lessens only at a fearful cost—the cost of vigor, 
the cost of perpetuation of the race, the cost of a 
healthy mind and moral sentiment, the cost of a 


THE MINDICVELEINGPARHELE TO” PLAY®: “13 1 


sound theology. The spiritual in him is like the - 
mental—fundamentally in connection with the 
animal. The natural and the spiritual parts are 
a complex mass. They are like a tangled skein 
of silk of various colors. We are in the terrestrial 
as well asin the celestial. And we are most loyal 
to Him who is royal when we use all his gifts, 
when we enjoy all his benefits—those which na- 
ture pours forth as well as those which grace be- 
stows. All our being is to be renewing. Our 
excellence is in timely playing as well as in timely 
working. Our true behavior is to enjoy so far as 
we can all sweet scents and savors, all good color 
and form, all good friends and companionships. 

The divine indwelling is a help to play. It 
helps vigor and therefore sportiveness, therefore 
smiles and laughter and happiness of soul. 

The faith that is in Jesus, born of heaven and 
sending to heaven, is a faith helpful to festival 
and holiday, helpful to the sports of childhood 
and growth, and to the joys of manhood and 
womanhood. To play is a part of the nature 
that belongs to us as men and as Christians. All 
which was good in the unfallen creation is good 
and desirable in the redeemed creation. It is as 
when our continent emerged; the land gained on 
the waters, new land rose up from the bottom of 
inland seas, until finally the large area of North 
America existed. So grace is not raising a part 


132 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


of your nature, but is raising the whole. Its 
work is of as wide extent as you are. It covers 
the whole area. Every part of you is important 
—the oldest and the newest, the lowest and the 
highest. In the earth we must have all the strata 
of the rocks; every bed, the lowermost as well 
as the uppermost. We must have the expansion 
of vegetable life as well as the expansion of ani- 
mal life. We must have the coarser work and 
the finer. So is the earth best adapted for the 
residence of man. In the woods and in the fields 
as we walk we see the springs coming up. Every- 
where over the hills and the valleys it is the same: 
water rising out of the earth and appearing upon 
the surface, generally upon the hillsides, where 
the water-bearing strata most outcrop. Like 
this constant issuing of the water is the constant 
and universal outcome of the spirit of play in the 
divinely inspired man. 

What shall the millions of holy children do 
when our earth gets as it should be? What do 
the millions of children in heaven do? Or are 
there no children there? In our glimpses of the 
holy city we see emerald, amethyst, and all man- 
ner of precious stone. We see gates of pearl and 
a street of shining gold. We see running waters 
and fruitful trees. There is the play-element 
here. Even God himself seems to have it in his 


THE INDWELLING A HELP TO PLAY 133 


creation of the ludicrous and especially of the 
beautiful. 

Our play-days, our holidays, are like the golden 
letters of various shapes which begin the chapters 
of old manuscripts. Play is the gilded frame of 


the picture, the marginal ornament of the book 
of life. 


GHIA BALE Rae aVil i 
THE INDWELLING A BODILY HELP. 


THERE is a mystic sentimentalism which un- 
derrates the body, along with much else of earth; 
which neglects, despises, and perhaps even repro- 
bates what are commonly called good things; all 
this in its appreciation of the goods of heaven. 
But we are neither to despise nor to neglect any- 
thing which God has given us. We are to glorify 
God in all things, even whether we eat or drink. 
The great redeeming God comes into all the 
spheres of man’s kingdom. Man carries himself 
through all his provinces as a redeemed person. 
He trusts and prays about the things of nature. 
His heavenly life is in his earthly, and his earthly 
life is in his heavenly. 

Certainly Christ gives to the soul dispositions 
healthful to the body. Man is a bundle of or- 
ganisms: the digestive, the pulmonary, the ner- 
vous, the muscular, the sexual, the mental, the 
moral. By these organisms physical life mani- 
fests itself. Each of these has a most delicate 

134 


THE INDWELLING A BODILY HELP 135 


susceptibility and each is connected with the 
rest; so connected that the condition of any or- 
ganism affects that of the others. The highest, 
the controlling organism, is the mental, the soul. 
This it is which the Scripture means by heart, 
when it says, “‘ Out of the heart are the issues of 
life.’ Here are the beginnings, the goings forth 
of bodily life. Those energies affect it. He who 
is in a state of love for all that is to be loved, and 
of reverence for all that is to be reverenced, tends 
to have a flexible, recuperative, healthful body. 
He is ruled by the Master, and blessed results 
follow even in his physical nature; he has the 
greater power to overcome wear and tear and 
disease. 

Further, Christ redeems the body by redeem- 
ing the soul from sins injurious to the body. A 
person gets bodily harm by fear or dislike or 
anger or discontent or consuming regard for 
money. A person gets bodily harm in con- 
demning himself everlastingly, vexing himself 
about something in himself, or by forever study- 
ing how his food or his exercise affects him; for- 
ever weighing, measuring, estimating. So one 
gets bodily harm by living in a state of condem- 
nation of others or of anything. ‘It is God that 
judgeth.” “ Judge not, that ye be not judged.” 
There is in all evil judgment a balancing of life 
on the wrong center, and the result is deteriora- 


136 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


tion. A man may live in his work until it hurts 
him; he may live in his dislikes until they hurt 
him: the nerve-force degenerates. ‘‘ Whosoever 
committeth sin isthe servant of sin.” Sourness, 
hate, bitterness, scorn, poison the body. Sullen- 
ness, a state of continual provocation, hurts the 
body. Fear, worry, legality, the whole brood 
of sins, have evil influence upon brain, spine, 
and nerve-center. They tend to feverishness 
and congestion, to atrophy and destruction of 
power. One may worry about something until 
somewhere, by muscular contraction or other- 
wise, there gets to be a sore spot, a center of ir- 
ritability, something abnormal and weak. And 
so many a bodily infirmity is born, many a 
wretched physical condition is produced. 

On the other hand, ‘“‘ Walk in the Spirit, and 
ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.”” You 
shall be rid of bad states of soul; your state shall 
become one of victory and rest, and shall tend 
to health. Erroneous and injurious ideas shall 
be given up, and these sources of feebleness and 
sickness shall, therefore, not exist. Mending the 
heart will sometimes mend the body. To restore 
the soul will sometimes restore the body. 

Again, newness of spiritual life can so right a 
man that every curative force can do its proper 
work upon him: air, sunlight, water, soil, exer- 
cise, rest, in nature; the doctor, the nurse, med- 
icine. 


THE INDWELLING A BODILY HELP bet, 


Christ may accompany with especial power the 
means of health, or he may give especial under- 
standing of them and especial wisdom in their 
use. Seemingly, he may especially appear in 
nature for bodily good; may give an especial 
blessing to fresh air, change of scene, cleanliness, 
nourishing food, massage, medicine, all the cura- 
tive forces. Yet a direct healing is a very diffi- 
cult matter to decide about, because of the num- 
ber of mental cures; this by quacks, by Christian 
science, by hypnotism and magnetism; this by 
ordinary physicians. Great is the healing power 
of suggestion. To have the thought power- 
fully impressed upon you that by a certain act 
or process you will be cured is, in the nature of 
the case, to do something toward curing you. 
Many are the proofs of this. Cases can be cited 
of real cures wrought by apparently no other 
agency. ‘The variety of these curative processes 
is considerable; the great thing is to have faith 
in the remedy. 

Men do not sufficiently believe in the forgive- 
ness of sins, God’s forgiveness, complete forgive- 
ness of the penitent for their faults and sins. 
Thoroughly to believe this is to feel acceptance 
with God, his entire reconciliation; is to receive 
him in power for redemption. God loves his 
enemies, bad as they are; loves you, patiently 
waits upon you, and works for the restoration of 
your lost self. He did not lose it, but he is try- 


138 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


ing to save it, and perhaps the bodily part. It 
certainly is not eternally shut off from the influ- 
ences of the human spirit, and perhaps it is not 
from those of the divine Spirit, though the scope 
of his working here is quite imperfectly under- 
stood. 

Any bringing in of God to accomplish physical 
or other restoration is by faith. But it is a mark 
of delusion to make one force do all work, cor- 
rect all evils, cure all diseases. Yet faith has this 
appearance simply because it regulates all other 
forces; it is by no means a substitute for them, 
but it so governs, so corrects, as to set all healthful 
agencies at work. Confidence in God seems to 
supply conditions which permit him to create 
favorable changes in the body. 

The divine indwelling is a bodily help in the 
matter of death. In redeemed man there are 
glimpses of a special power over nature; this in 
the miracles of the Redeemer, and of certain of 
his; this in a certain possible power to recuper- 
ate the’ body, even-to heal-it;. this in ‘certam 
power given to bear and to do with ease that 
which otherwise were hard. This we owe in 
part to a soul naturally exalted, and in part to 
the streaming in of the powers of the Holy Ghost. 
“The earnest expectation of the creature waiteth 
for the manifestation of the sons of God.” Even 
as God is instant and operative in nature so more 


THE INDWELLING A BODILY HELP 139 


or less shall the divine life in his people make them 
instant and operative in nature. It shall be used, 
it may be, as a garment to be put on and off, 
even as the angels have seemed to use it, or as 
our Lord after his resurrection seemed to use it. 
There is such a vitality in piety, such a breaking 
through nature, such a manifestation of the spir- 
itual kingdom in the natural and over the natural. 

A distinguishing evidence of this power of spir- 
itual life over nature is seen in the resurrection 
from the dead. The Lord overcame the death 
of nature; he appeared and reappeared in the 
resurrection body. His followers shall be re- 
leased through death from nature as binding, 
and only use -nature as helping; shall have the 
full attainment of that which is above nature, that 
which we call the supernatural—perhaps never in 
divorcement from nature, but ever in lordship 
over her. 

You have the fear of death, you feel helpless 
peroremtnes oreat cnemyvun but think of, sichea 
Scripture as this: ‘Jesus through death hath 
destroyed him that had the power of death.”’ 
Or think of Paul’s song of thanksgiving: ‘O 
death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is 
thy victory?” If you die you are only fallen 
asleep in Christ, you are really alive. In the 
Saviour’s union with you your vital substance is 
guarded, sustained, and you shall awake again. 


GHA ETE Ree xslt 


THE INDWELLING FOREVER. 


GOD is permanent. “Thou, O Lord, remain- 
est forever.’ Again and again in the sad refrain 


of the Psalms there break in the repeated assur- 
ances of Jehovah’s abiding presence. In the Nine- 
tieth Psalm we have set over against the perish- 
ableness of man the imperishableness of God ; 
over against the temporal world the eternal: 
over against the passing of time and the evil 
of change him who is our “ dwelling-place for- 


ever and ever.’’ Jesus is permanent. We read, 
‘Jesus Christ the same yesterday, to-day, and 
forever.’ Believers are permanent. Christ can- 


not change, and if he brings them into union with 
himself, how can they but abide? He holds them, 
confirms them, conforms them. Some great forest 
stands; the crowns of a thousand trees shining 
in the sun, moving in the breeze; in their wilds, 
giants wonderful of stature: everywhere, trunks 


rising from the earth like masts. Now, no poverty 
140 


THE INDWELLING FOREVER I4I 


of soil, no barren ground, makes these to die; their 
tap-roots strike down to some deeper stratum. 
The forest is fresh even to a mysterious age; is 
of undying verdure; an eternal vegetation. So 
live unto everlasting God’s people; in their vig- 
or they grow and flourish, are ever refreshed 
and refreshing. ‘‘ I have meat to eat,” said Jesus, 
“which ye know not of.” The fir-tree on the 
hillside defies the wintry wind and all the storms 
of all the years, because its root goes into the 
crevices of the rock or grips the surface and the 
angles. So he who is in the infinite and eternal 
Spirit shall hold on. ‘They that wait upon the 
Lord,” said the prophet, “shall renew their 
strength; they shall mount up with wings as 
eagles.”’ 

_ Spiritual and eternal life are in much one. 
The spiritual life confirmed becomes eternal. 
The true life is of God and in God, and destined 
to continue while God does. The indwelling 
Spirit is a surety and a seal. We hallow people 
when they die; we say that they are with the 
Lord; but should we not hallow them while they 
live? They are in the Spirit; they bear the 
Lord’s seal, his name and likeness; are marked 
as his property, secured as his treasure. Do we 
not read even of Christ, For him hath God the 
Father sealed”? And every son, even as did 
the Son of God, carries the Spirit to make and 


142 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


mark 42m ason. And so we read of Christ’s 
people, ‘In whom, after that ye believed, ye 
were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise.” 
Their life in the Spirit from Christ makes sure 
their continuance in life even beyond death; a 
continuance enjoyable and enjoyed in all the 
glory of the kingdom. “Sealed,” said the 
Apostle, “unto the day of redemption.” 

The future life is real. The life of the corals 
and the oysters, of the fishes and the lizards, has 
been followed by the life of the megatheriums 
and the-mastodons, and that has been followed 
by the life of the higher brute creatures, which 
in turn has been followed by the life of human 
creatures; a rational, an advancing race. But 
the possibilities of life are not here exhausted. 
The earth’s revolutions shall go on after you and 
I have gone, and with them a mighty life shall 
continue. Meanwhile a still higher order of life 
has been created or revealed, and into it we can 
have entered. 

He who is divinely filled is absolutely inde- 
structible. In him is the Spirit, with his mighty 
working through all wear and tear, all enemies and 
change, all that we fear and dread, even through 
death. Things shall move along as unimpeded as 
the planets move in the heavens. And God shall 
be the motive power. 

“The mercy of the Lord is from everlasting 


THE INDWELLING FOREVER 143 


to everlasting upon them that fear him.’”? That 
is, it is from everlasting in cause and to everlast- 
ing in effect, from everlasting in thought and to_ 
everlasting in reality. Here is an immense idea, 
an immense fact, brought into close connection 
with the man who fears God. That man goes 
on to everlasting, and by a decree which is from 
everlasting. To-day he is, to-morrow he is not 
—no, notso. To-day he is and to-morrow he is. 
The length, breadth, and height of the cathe- 
drals were planned beforehand, but only gradu- 
ally were they built. Slowly advanced the liv- 
ing work of beauty; slowly it became strong 
and capable of surviving. Piece by piece it was 
done: the deep portals of the doors, the large 
windows, the richly carved front and the but- 
tressed sides, the towers, the spires. Figures, 
carvings, and colorings still decorate the building 
as the days go by. The beautiful structure may 
take centuries to finish. So God has a long work 
with his own, and this work is never completed. 
He who is the underlying cause and ground in 
the world of things is the underlying cause and 
ground in that world of spirits in which he con- 
tinually dwells, giving it continuance and _ per- 
manence. The Bible says of the righteous, “ He 
shall never be moved.” In railroad engineer- 
ing large masses of stone are quarried, moved, 
and fixed; culverts are built to last a thousand 


144 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


years. Sand, lime, and stone, with human in- 
vention, strength, and skill, build them to last 
forever, to carry beneath them the waters of a 
thousand springs to come. Under each dim arch 
shall water flow while grass grows and water 
runs. Very like. indeed in strength for unmea- 
sured years is the Christian. Unlike too, for these 
sunless culverts remain with the perishable earth, 
while he shall remain with the imperishable | 
heavens. So solid is he. 

The psalmist sang, ‘‘ Thou hast made my 
mountain to stand.” No pressure known on 
the earth’s surface shall move the mountain, no 
blowing of wind or pouring of rain or scathing of 
fire or crumbling of frost. Ever you may look 
into the distance and the mountain is there. 
From year to year Mount Katahdin in Maine, 
on the extreme east, Pike’s Peak in the center of 
the continent, Mount Shasta on the Pacific coast ; 
the Alps and the Pyrenees, the Apennines and 
the Himalayas, the Andes and the Alleghanies: 
no earthquake shock shall move, no changes in 
all the lapse of time shall destroy. 

The waters of the sea are running in mighty 
currents, upper currents and under; are swept 
by the winds of all quarters; are rising and fall- 
ing with tidal waves: so ever, night and day, 
from year to year. But here and there over all 
the wide area are islands and chains of islands, 


THE INDWELLING FOREVER 145 


strong as the mountain-ranges the peaks of which 
the islands are ; established so as no moving masses 
of water can ever break them down; no rushing, - 
piling waves, driven by wind or tide, can go over 
them. So endure they “who are kept by the 
power of God through faith,” they of the believing 
type; their “ mortality” 1s “swallowed up of life” ; 
they of the Spirit. reap, lifeseverlastine 4 Our 
Ieord says, Ile that believeth”, 11) hath ever- 
lasting life.” He speaks of ‘fruit unto life eter- 
bab ande says or certain, 1 give; unto them 
eternal life.’ And so among the gifts of God’s 
indwelling, many and mighty, we have this great- 
est and sum of them. 

The walk with Christ is a walk in view of the 
land which is very broad, the morning land, “‘ the 
land of uprightness ;”’ a land into which those who 
enter know the names and nature of angels, and 
know the Lord over the creatures as he is not 
known here. Let the world and its processions 
go by, let the years come and go. We go out 
and in in the daytime and know not of what is in 
the heavens above us; but it begins to get dark, 
and silently all the stars appear. The believer is 
-carried up and over and on, shaped and mastered 
by the Spirit, and then this life of duty, toil, and 
conflict, of trial even, is crowned with perfect and 
eternal life. 


CEVA TU WR ecxe 
EVERLASTING LIFE A GROWTH. 


THE spiritual life here prefigures the spirit- 
ual life hereafter. It is just as the mineral king- 
dom, in certain instances, prefigures the vegetable. 
Some minerals present vegetable forms and col- 
ors. The frosted window presents the forms of 
moss and seaweed. It is also just as the seed- 
corn buried in the earth and germinating in the 
darkness prefigures the plant which shall rise 
above the earth; or as the green grain-field of 
the spring prefigures the ripening harvest-field 
of the summer. So present graces, gifts, and 
blessedness are the same as those which shall be, 
the impurities removed, the absolutely perfect 
metal remaining. Such correspondence there is 
between this lower and that higher state, supple- 
mentary to this and modified forthe better. The 
seed in the earth can hardly foretell the plant, 
the acorn knows but little of the oak. What 


do the animals know of human life? So in this 
146 


EVERLASTING LIFE A GROWTH 147 


world, with its limitations, we can hardly under- 
stand that; in its weight and measuring, in its 
form and coloring, in all that shall come of its — 
wiser people and its greater love. The river 
searches, it may be, long and much to find its 
outlet; the course will be down long valleys, 
around ridges, through a mountain-range per- 
haps; will be with many windings and a various 
current; but at last the river reaches the sea. So 
that which is now is but a warrant, an earnest, of 
that which shall be. The heir is now under tutors 
and governors, then he shall enter on his inher- 
itance. Here are given the strength, the tastes, 
the fitness for that which shall be there. 

The future shall bring but natural growth; very 
little that is arbitrary, that is artificial, but mainly 
what is organic. Even as the sap is changed into 
vegetable juices, and these are changed into the 
solid forms of plant life, and all by well-arranged — 
movement. When the present spiritual life be- 
comes eternal life, it will be as natural as when 
invisible vapor in the sky becomes visible cloud. 
One sows here and reaps hereafter, and so we are 
counseled to lay up treasure in heaven. 

We see our little brooks that come down across 
the fields; we look at our streams that rise with 
the rains and fall when they cease. But we have 
learned that there are rivers on a magnificent 
scale, rivers fed from mountain-ranges and roll- 


148 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


ing through long-extended basins. We have 
learned of the Missouri and the Mississippi. 
And we know that the river does not end with 
the horizon. It goes on under other skies. So 
with him in whom God dwells, who is a certain 
incarnation of God. Let him serenely pass be- 
yond the horizon. He is the friend of God, and 
when he is not, then, as with Enoch of old, God 
takes him. He dies; his kindred come, take up 
the body, and bury it. But when all this which 
was visible is under the ground, there still is a 
living person and a divine indwelling. 

We read of geological times in which much 
was done toward forming the earth; in which 
flora and fauna came and went, and still other 
flora and fauna of finer form came into being. 
The whole creation advanced. So advances the 
spiritual life, develops organically into the eternal 
life. One does. not change his radical character: 
he remains morally the same, Certain processes 
of grace begun here are carried forward. The 
work now and then is like the work of the coral 
insects, putting up on some submarine volcanic 
peak that which shall become a palm-crowned 
island on the wide sea. | 

As, in the finishing of the earth, the broad 
valleys were filled, the foundations of the plains 
and prairies were laid, many rugged places coy- 
ered and leveled, lake borders were terraced and 


EVERLASTING LIFE A GROWTH 149 


great flats run out into the sea, so similar move- 
ments shall take place for the Christian; his state 
shall change, he shall take on new and higher — 
forms. His genesis, his creation, shall go for- 
ward. As heat goes into light, as the chemical 
powers go from simple to complex combinations, 
so the humbler sensibilities of the Christian, his 
natural sympathies, shall develop into the high- 
est and most beautiful moral and self-sacrificing 
affections ; natural affection pervaded and uplifted 
by the new inspirations, by religion combining 
with nature, feeding and freshening its percep- 
tions, sensibilities, associations, and sympathies. 
The divine indwelling shall go on to a life com- 
plete in itself and its surroundings. Yet for a 
time the stream is narrow and shallow, is in the 
fastnesses of the mountains: but patience, and it 
shall come out into the wide plain. The river 
of life runs through that ridge which bounds our 
vision; continues on into the greater spaces and 
freedoms beyond. The stream which flows now 
shall flow then in fuller volume. He who en- 
lightens us now will enlighten us still more: he 
who makes free now will make still more free. 
He who hallows us here can still more hallow 
us there, where surrounding evil shall be gone, 
the deadly struggle be over; the struggle with 
temptation, with the inward resistance and the 
outward obstacle to being good. The Spirit 


I50 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


there shall work all clearance of sin, all consecra- 
tion to God, all life of grace, all aid in praying 
and praising, in fellowship and service; all gift in 
knowledge and wisdom and speech. Yes, a lower 
system shall pass into a higher. One shall, in 
part at least, have passed from the kingdoms of 
nature into the magnificence of the kingdoms in 
the Spirit. 

From beginning to end the Word of God ever 
points us to a system of life distinctly higher than 
the present and in which the religious element is 
dominant ; a perfect and permanent system among 
intelligent and spiritual beings; and while in part 
their own work and natural, still in part the crea- 
tive, adorning, and redeeming work of the Spirit 
of God: even that kingdom of heaven which has 
promise for time and promise for eternity. The 
Old Testament is full of this promise, and so is 
the New. 

In organic growth periods like and unlike each 
other occur—transitions to that which is higher. 
A shell-fish forms in the ooze at the bottom of 
the bay—a square inch of oyster, say; that little 
creature grows right where it is to larger and 
larger size, but keeps to its type. On the other 
hand, a growth occurs that passes to a stage un- 
like yet like the former. A seed changes some- 
what magically in form, until, instead of the frail 


EVERLASTING LIFE A GROWTH I51 


and tiny germ, we have the tree in its magnitude 
and majesty. A like organic passage occurs in 
spiritual life after death. Here is the life of the © 
caterpillar: it is quite different from the after-life 
of the butterfly, yet the insect is the same. He 
has passed up higher, by the working of a law 
which was over him. Just so it is with the 
Christian. He naturally, legitimately, organi- 
cally enters into his future life. No man gets 
there arbitrarily, artificially, without cause in 
himself, and that existing before he gets there. 
Life here is like that of the little plants which 
in late winter we grow in the window to set out 
in the spring; gives here that which is but as the 
early wild-flowers to the whole summer land; 
gives here that which is but as the first ripe spot 
in a great harvest-field. For instance, the abid- 
ing of Christ within is the power of the resurrec- 
tion, is the actual living source of a spiritual and 
glorified body. For Scripture says, “If the 
Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead 
dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the 
dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by 
his Spirit that dwelleth in you.”’ That indwelling 
of Christ in his own does it. When tired we lie 
down to rest and sink into sleep and utter help- 
lessness, but we are kept by the powers of nature 
and the presence of God; kept to awake the same 


152 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


persons that lay down, yet very much refreshed. 
In like manner does God work when “he giveth 
his beloved sleep.” 

The germ is here, but beyond a certain point 
it can only develop under the forces and condi- 
tions of another world; a world the whole econ- 
omy of which shall be adapted to produce such 
development; shall be such that there shall be 
times of restitution, that there shall be the mani- 
festation of the sons of God. Now may that 
Spirit who unknowable is behind all things known, 
and indivisible is behind all things divided, who 
without form is behind all form—may he reveal 
to us in all its substance and force, its motion 
and growth, that truly better world than this. 
And now, as we go on in our study, may it be 
us ‘to whom God would make known what is the 
riches of the glory of this mystery which is Christ 
in you the hope of glory.” 


IT. 


io Ee UIVANS S| DEVO Raa 
INDWELLING. 


153 


GIT AP PERSO 
THE BELIEVING LIFE. 


THIS study of fundamental religious experi- 
ences has been, so far, from the point of view 
of the Spirit, his wonderful work in altering and 
making and molding. I now turn from the 
heavens to the earth, turn from him who /as in- 
fluence to him who zs influenced. Let us take a 
walk around his estate, even enter hishome. His 
birth is believing, and the root of all his ife and 
growth is believing; so we will begin with believ- 
ing: that by which we receive him whose pres- 
ence moves the air-currents that encircle the 
earth and the ocean-currents that encircle the 
continent; whose presence it is that makes even 
nature not distant, cold, and dead, but near, warm, 
and full of life. But without their assent the Cre- 
ator is in his worlds, while only by their assent 
is the Father of spirits in the spirits—does he 
have this mystical union, with his own. By out- 
ward pressure may two crystals grow together 
and become one, but only by inward assent may 

155 


156 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


man receive his God and become that spiritual, 
divinely filled being we wish now to study. 
Believing is fundamental; for only this gives 
and maintains that divine indwelling which is a 
well of water springing up into everlasting life. 
Believing is a natural force with supernatural 
helps, by which man on his part as a free being 
is able to make connection with God on his part ; 
is that which on our side runs parallel with all 
the divine moving. It gives the divine indwell- 
ing in each of its manifestations, as the guid- 
ing, the liberating, the comforting. It gives the 
opening for Christian experience, Christian wor- 
ship and service. No elevating influence can 
come until the person unlocks and opens an 
inner door. But when this is done, God, though 
he was within, arrives, as it were, from afar. Be- 
lieving is the grand way, the arranged way, the 
natural, the constitutional way. It is the very 
power which brings inGod. It and it alone enables 
the spirit of man to enter into communion with 
God. It and it alone enables a man to outlive SySs- 
tems and suns; it makes him superior to death 
and all other forces of evil, because it places the 
living God within him. It is as the putting of 
seed into the ground. Here is a seed, but of 
what use is it until the soil is around and over it, 
until it is put under the conditions essential to 
sprouting? Believing is as the covered kernel of 


Se ee eee 


oo 


THE BELIEVING LIFE 157 


wheat out of which comes in due time a stalk with 
many grains. In this losing himself in God one 
finds himself as never before; he comes to his 
own. He is like the bud which was shut up in 
darkness, with winter without ; but a great warmth 
came round, a great running of sap began, the 
veins of the bud filled, and it unfolded. It was 
Jesus who uttered the words, “ All things are 
possible to him that believeth;’’ Jesus, the great- 
est example of believing the world has ever seen. 

Believing is a very emphatic teaching of the 
Old Testament through all its Psalms and proph- 
ecies and histories. It is an essential character- 
istic of the whole race of the sons of God; es- 
sential in John the Baptist, in the teaching of 
Jesus, in the teaching of Paul and John; through- 
out the Bible spiritual living is by faith. These 
words contain the whole of it: “ Believe on the 
Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” 

This believing is the letting yourself connect 
with and be held by the Lord of all heavens and 
suns and stars, of all systems, remote or near. It 
is like the attachment of those beautiful nests that 
hang from the end of lofty branches, that no 
enemy by climbing can reach within; nests that 
wave to and fro in every breeze and yet are sel- 
dom injured by the hardest storm. 

A steamship is here, a body of iron and steel, the 
labor of a thousand men a thousand days, finished 


158 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


in its structure and engines to a fabulous fineness. 
It bears on over the lifting waters and across the 
limitless sea. The passengers, with or without 
passing fears, feel safe in what they know and in 
that they are supported, kept, and carried on. That 
illustrates our faith in Him in whom we have put 
ourselves and keep ourselves. The engineer con- 
structs his bridge after the minutest forethought, 
in all its compactness and solidity, its curving lines 
and symmetry. It stands a wonder of strength 
and grace, lordly and beautiful. It springs from 
shore to shore. No frost shall crack it, no wind 
blow it over. It shall live in all its splendid utility 
a thousand years. Multitudes shall use it and 


never be afraid. This is their faith who walk — 


with God. 

Believing is the apprehension of truth, and so 
strong as to begin the work of redemption. There 
is a beginning to understand the Eternal Being ; 
a beginning to perceive him who was but a dim 
and far-off reality, who was but a mere speck of 
light, a star; to see him as the sun. Now the 
whole visible creation might disappear with the 
stars of night and still God would remain like 
the sun. Though the earth were burned up, 
his judgment would still sit and his salvation be 
still clear. Put out all the starry suns that fill 
illimitable space, and this Sun would still shine. 
Believing is to have, in the grave doubts of nature, 


THE BELIEVING LIFE 159 


deep conviction of spiritual realities; is to realize, 
as not naturally, law and gospel; is to sense and 
understand the glorious statements of psalmist 
and prophet, of apostles and the Master. It is 
as true now as of Paul and his fellow-Christians, 
“God... hath shined in our hearts, to give the 
light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the 
face of Jesus Christ.”’ 

Another element of belief is appreciation of 
religious truth. Says one, “ No man can sav- 
ingly possess the truth who does not appreciate 
it.’ Noman can sing who does not appreciate 
singing, and those who do sing greatly appreciate 
the art. No man can paint who does not appre- 
ciate beauty. Believing is as when one sees the 
flowers scattered everywhere along the road on 
a summer’s day, and enjoys them. The believer 
appreciates the promises of God; appreciates the 
Lord Jesus Christ; appreciates his light, his gut- 
dance, his comfort; appreciates the blessing of 
daily drawing upon him to meet daily wants and 
worries, daily temptations and trials. He knows 
his own emptiness, his own weakness, and appre- 
ciates Christ’s word, ‘‘ Without me ye can do 
nothing.” This pleasure is like that of him who 
lives near a lake that lies narrow between slowly 
descending mountain-spurs that slope gently to 
it: he has a constant sight and enjoyment of the 
other side as it stretches away and afar. 


160 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


But the main element of belief is appropriation. 
You must do more than admit and agree, be 
more than a nominal believer. There needs to 
be more than a thought or a knowledge. You 
also must do more than appreciate; you must 
take hold of, you must appropriate. You must 
have desire, have hunger to come under all the 
obligations and influences of religious truth. You 
must be as ready to be caught hold of by the 
truth as dry wood is to catch fire and burn freely. 
Readiness for the truth becomes as much a prop- 
erty as combustibility is a property of coal and 
wood, or as magnetism is a property of some 
pieces of iron, and of that great magnet the earth 
itself. One is as ready for God to work in and 
for him in this element of faith as the prepared 
field is ready for air and sunlight and moisture. 
In nature and in grace, fulfil the conditions and 
you have the mighty works. In the snow we 
have the myriad, monotonous raindrops turned 
into a variety of beautiful crystals. Now sup- 
pose a drop envious and ambitious to become a 
snowflake with charming form: that drop could 
never undergo the transformation unless the drop 
placed itself where it could be touched by the frost 
or the cold wind, could get high in the air or reach 
some polar region. Fulfil the conditions and there 
are snowflakes enough. Believing is the earth 
receiving the rain and being nourished; it is the 


TE ee en 


THE BELIEVING<LIFE 161 


great broad land filling under the steady down- 
pour that means something for grain-field and 
meadow, for orchard and forest. We receive 
of Him who sent the earth spinning in its circles, 
and whose circle of light and love goes round 
the earth every day of its being. 

The little children of the whole child-world 1il- 
lustrate believing. They eat and sleep and play 
and do their tasks with entire trust. They, the 
most feeble of beings, have a trust equal to their 
need, and are content. They neither doubt, nor 
are suspicious, nor worry, nor dream even, of not 
being taken care of. The Christian life in this 
respect is a kind of glorified childhood. There is 
among mere men no richer, no fuller experience of 
faith than in the saints of the far-off Old Testa- 
ment time. In the Spirit before the mast, they 
first and vividly illustrate trust and its calmness, 
consciousness of God and walking in his presence ; 
illustrate too the firmness and strength of soul 
derived from this reliance on things unseen. 

The brightest illustration of a life of faith is 
our Lord Jesus. No voice so speaks of the 
Heavenly Father, no heart ever beat so full of 
trust in that Father. No man ever so perceived, 
so appreciated, so appropriated the unseen real- 
ities as he. Living or dying, his was thoroughly 
plitcioteraitn. Llemsaid. “tHe: that sentyaments 
true;” “I know that thou hearest me always ;” 


162 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


“T live by the Father.” To him the Father was 
a great reality, communion with him was habitual, 
life was a walk with him. To no man has God 
listened and responded as to him, the ideal Man. 
True man with true and warm heart, unappre- 
ciated and unsupported, living in a very tempest of 
misrepresentation and opposition, he maintained 
faith. In all his trials and temptations, his weari- 
ness, he maintained faith. In that mysterious 
belief that he was the Son of the Father, and in 
that mysterious purpose that he was to redeem 
the world, he maintained faith, simple, fresh, un- 
disturbed. Yes, his was faith in its highest de- 
velopment, its absolute perfection. 

If your lot be God’s choosing and your duty 
his making, then in him be your believing. You 
may be like a field in a dry time: but let a great 
rain come, there is refreshment in it, nourish- 
ment in it, strength in it. Let God come into 
your soul, and he will put a prop under every- 
thing, he will put you to rights. Only believe 
every hour, hold on by faith. The seaweed on 
the rock in all the sweep of the tide, and with 
nothing in which to root, is able to hold: that 
is a very hard storm which can tear the plant 
away. The lichen holds fast to the face of the 
cliff amid all beatings of the weather, and even 
grows. So you can be hardy, so you can hold 
on to God and hold on by a dozen separate grips 


uae” 1 


THE BELIEVING LIFE 163 


to his church, his Word, and all, as to the rock 
of your salvation. 

The believer is leading this life in spiritual 
things all the while, apprehending, appreciating, 
appropriating them. An undercurrent of such 
faith flows through all his life. It is his response 
to the divine movement within him. It is that by 
which he is continually kept in contact with the 
eternal existence. Our faith underlies all the 
divine side of the divine indwelling and, in fact, 
all the human side. It is essential to the divine 
illumining and guiding, the divine comforting and 
liberating; essential to all the continuous divine 
work within us. 


CHAPTER XXI. - 


AYGOODSEIEE, 


THE divine indwelling creates a good life. 
Union with Christ gives of his Spirit until he is 
formed within. The lake responds to the sun— 
the blue waves sparkle and shine; so the believer 
responds to him who is believed in, and gives 
back his image. There is a sense of his great- 
ness, his goodness, his nearness; the carrying of 
his presence continually; the being supported 
by his communications constantly. Paul makes 
much of the life of Christ in us; of being born 
by this into a second birth, a holy nature, and a 
growing goodness. 

A good life is a true life. It harmonizes with 
the nature of things and the nature of God. He 
who is saved is saved from delusion; he is like 
the prodigal “ when he came to himself ’’—he is 
restored to a right mind. Man can calculate the 
place of the moon in the heavens at any period, 
however remote, in the past or in the future, be- 


cause the moon is ever true to the laws that 
164 


aid 


A GOOD LIFE 165 


govern it. A good man is true to the laws, the 
forces, that govern him. He sees and loves and 
lives in moral truth. He leads a life correspon- 
dent to the moral law and to the law of faith. 
The crystal is under law; so is the Christian. He 
is under the great Lawgiver; is in the divine 
order ; is in agreement with nature and all that is 
above nature ; isin agreement with all the orderly, 
organic systems of God. 

A good life is a beautiful life. There is in a 
good life an indescribable element—something 
like the fragrance of a flower. It comes out in 
taste, in tone, in manner of behavior. We do 
best to call it spiritual beauty. There is One 
who arches the sky, who graduates its form and 
color in every part; who has touched the rolling 
wave with beauty and the rising vapor; who col- 
ors each leaf and shades each feature; who has 
given bloom to the purple plum and red to the 
ripening peach. He also has created moral beau- 
ties : those of motherhood and brotherhood ; those 
of courage and gentleness ; those of faith and hope, 
of love and patience, of prayer and praise; “ the 
His polishing and gilding 


) 


beauty of holiness.’ 
and garnishing and finishing are seen in all good 
souls. The graduated and balanced color of the 
landscape is an emblem of the graduated and 
balanced temper of the soul. Says Emerson: 
“The high and divine beauty . . . is that which 


166 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


is found in combination with the human will, and 
never separate. Beauty is the mark God sets 
upon virtue.”” In many a place we see fine and 
fair trees, mostly unsown of men, untilled by 
human toil, but planted and nurtured of God. 
Some of us love trees and the genius of the 
woods, while all see in the wooded world a beau- 
tiful thing. And the work of Christ in the soul 
makes in its magnificent vision that the love of zz 
should be a passion with us all. A great action 
has grandeur, and a good action has beauty. 
Many a simple, touching act of devotion has 
thrilled one with its beauty: the stepping aside 
to let another advance to safety or tohonor. We 
think that much and mightily those who stand in 
celestial light behold of beauty veiled to mortal 
eye. We always picture the angels as having in 
their forms and faces a comeliness indescribable. 

A good life is strong. It authenticates itself 
and appeals to others; is seen and felt by the 
world and by the community of believing souls; 
is a strong testimony and influence, impressive, 
often much more influential than the possessor is 
aware of. 

A good life is for God; this in beginning, 
middle, and end; this is always its character. 
Each kind of tree has its own type throughout, a 
form unchangeable, and develops its peculiar na- 
ture completely. The basswood is of its own 


A GOOD LIFE 167 


kind; the tulip-tree differs from it a little, the 
oak a good deal, and the apple from all. So 
a good life has its own laws and forms, its own 
world in all its littles and its large, and is forever 
incapable of change. There is, possibly, at bot- 
tom, one disposition out of which the graces 
come, and by which they are nourished; and this 
may be what Scripture means by the new heart; 
but every grace has a specific and peculiar char- 
acter. The faith, the hope, the patience, ever 
have God in view; all states of soul, with their 
corresponding activities, have an especial sensi- 
tiveness and tenderness in relation to him. The 
person is evidently a man of God, though the idea 
of him may vary with persons. 

A good life is inspired by the Holy Ghost; by 
him who is appointed for man, the all-concluding 
being of the visible creation. That which makes 
the Christian differ from others is not so much 
that which he does as the way in which he does 
it, and the motives and supports he has in doing 
it. The divine indwelling is the great support of 
a good life. Water goes down into the soil; it 
enters each mouth of the infinitesimal rootlets, 
goes by these thousand ways into the stalk, 
exhales into the air, and returns again to the 
ground. This is the turning of the mystic wheel 
of life. So the Spirit reaches down and in and 
on, and gets to all cells and germs of every sort 


168 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


of life of which we are capable. He enters body 
and soul, and opens wide the heavenly gates to 
entrance free for every one, with all that properly 
belongs to him. 

We need the air. Its perpetual currents are 
forcommon purposes. So, too, there are at work 
everywhere below us those forces which crystal- 
lize minerals, which form rocks; there are at 
work everywhere around us those forces which 
integrate and disintegrate, which organize and 
disorganize. In like manner there is at work 
among His people the indwelling Spirit every 
day and every hour. You are neither gloomy 
nor complaining, neither cross nor exacting. He 
gives you the right manner of acting, the right 
attitude of being. Christ lives and works in you 
as nature works in every separate petal and stamen 
of a flower. You are gentle under provocation, 
insensible to slights, calm amid bustle, ever quiet 
in spirit, ever following where the Lord leads. 
You have with him blessed communings amid 
ordinary surroundings, prayers and meditations 
when alone, friendly offices and charitable judg- 
ments when with others. Men used to make ex- 
cursions afar for gold; but one does not need to 
undertake a journey to get divine grace. Nor 
need it await until one is risen from the dead; it 
may be received now. 

A good life is negatively good; it works 


A GOOD LIFE 169 


toward sinlessness. It is because of the sin of 
the world that the Bible so emphasizes holiness ; 
so often calls God holy and the Spirit holy. Sin 
gives color, gives trend, to the whole Book; it is 
a Book against sin, and telling how to get rid of 
it; telling of salvation from its dreadful power. 

The sinless life is like a soil neither too hard 
nor too soft, but mellow; neither too wet nor too 
dry, but moist; a soil free of the seeds and roots 
of weeds. ‘The sinless life is like a perfect gem. 
It is of one substance throughout; it is equally 
dense, equally clear and proportioned. It has 
nothing wanting, nothing broken or crooked or 
CloncelapeGeiasenoulaw om crack. no-eblurecr. 
speck or stain; is neither scratched nor worn, but 
is a pure and perfect stone. The sinless man is 
as the ‘angels, that excel in strength, that do 
His commandments, hearkening unto the voice 
of his word.” 

The ‘indwelling Spirit purifies from sin as the 
wind purifies the house, the road, the field; sweep- 
ing away many a foul thing, many a germ of dis- 
ease, many an insect plague. We have the fire, 
that burns all which is dirty beyond the power of 
water to wash clean or beyond the power of the 
hand to rub clean. We have the ocean, where 
the life of the waters is kept up by constant mo- 
tion; by perpetual currents from equator to pole 
and from pole to equator. In the swelling and 


170 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


impelling of the waters, now gently and now with 
power, and ever doing their cleansing work, we 
have an emblem of the Spirit. By Bible and 
conscience, by preacher and teacher, he tells us 
about the law and the sin that breaks the law. 
When once his voice is heard, it cannot be over- 
come by wishes or thoughts or activities; it can- 
not be bought off or drugged, but continues plain 
and penetrative, convincing of degrees and kinds 
and consequences of sin never thought of. How 
he illuminates places and times in which we did 
evil; certain transactions, or even the whole mis- 
erably selfish, spiritually heartless course! It 
may simply be one open sin, one secret sin, the 
neglect of one duty, or it may be an accumula- 
tion of sins; but, whatever it be, the battle is 
fought over it. This is the Spirit’s cleansing. 
The indwelling Spirit creates penitence, gives 
deliverance from the love of sin, full purpose 
to avoid it and keep every commandment. The 
divine indwelling works to separate and remove; 
works like the great streams of water passing 
through the sluice-boxes in mining-districts, to 
take away the dirt; works like fire in iron-ore, to 
remove all that which is foreign—the water, the 
acid, the sulphur; works to make deliverance 
from the power of indwelling sin—the glorious 
state of likeness to the Lord, of which state a 
symbol is the clothing of the angels and the white 


A GOOD LIFE 171 


linen of the saints. Men of the Spirit are men 
who hate sin. Look at the deep repugnance to — 
it in the 1o1st Psalm, at the deep penitence for it 
in the 51st Psalm, at the love of its opposite, 
righteousness, in the 119th Psalm. This psalm 
has the very breadth and heat of intense passion 
for keeping God’s laws. 

But a good life is positively good; is human, 
vigorous, juicy ; makes existence particularly sub- 
stantial and joyful; takes hold of the very rest and 
glory of heaven. Heat is not only destructive, 
but also constructive. It has helped stratification 
and cleavage in the deep earth below us. It has 
helped vegetation and animal life in the wide 
world around us. So the positiveness of a good 
life is to be insisted upon; not only the conquest 
of enemies, but distinct possession; not only rid- 
dance of mud and dust and every foul thing, but 
the real bloom of crocus and lily and rose; the 
real aroma and taste and touch; the vigor and 
the flourishing of faith, hope, and love; the clear 
mind, the vivid feeling, the happy soul. Such 
life is as real as are stars and planets, as are moon 
and sun, as is every form and power of nature. 
Grace has its push and pull, its light and flame. 

Again, a good life is good in ordinary every-day 
matters. Jesus liked to see the people in their 
homes, their markets, their highways; on the so- 
called homely side of life. So he is with his own in 


172 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


all daily life of toil and care and pain, helping them 
to be good in it all. He is with them even as the 
tabernacle, that symbol of the divine presence, was 
with them of old, and in the very midst of the 
camp. He is with his own in their hand to work, 
their eye to see, their voice to say or sing; with 
them in all their daily round. 

The most of the land is not mountain-ranges, 
and life for the most of us is not on Alpine peaks. 
The human race largely lives not on heights, but 
on lowlands. So the most of piety is not amid 
the stars, but upon this earth; is not in matters 
of great importance, but in matters of little im- 
portance. Life is like the fugitive slave travers- 
ing woods and swamps at night: his eye is on the 
pole-star, but as for the rest, he has bad walking 
and much darkness. Our living is by number- 
less pulse-beats and breathings, each seemingly a 
small affair. The really good life is largely faith- 
fulness in little things; in right motives and self- 
control here; in bright and contented service 
here; all the round of labor a round by Christ 
attended. Every dome of the sky has all the 
glory of sunrise and sunset; so every sphere of 
life may be touched with the glory of God. Every 
piece of woods has flowers in the spring and the 
singing of birds. In the service of God there is 
neither great nor small. He who has set all the 
stars in space has given all their markings and 


A GOOD LIFE 17 


colorings to the tiniest shells of the sea-shore. 
Size is nothing to him whose equal workings we 
behold through telescope and microscope. Out 
of the little particles God makes a great world; 
so out of the littles of life he makes a great charac- 
ter. In the plain of our life we may be cold, 
wet, barren soil, yielding little but moss; or, under 
the Sun of righteousness, we may be like the wide 
valley filled with grass and grain. 

In short, a good life is good through and 
through, being of a piece; has that unity which 
characterizes every work of God’s hand; likeness 
of part to part, agreement of each withall. Every 
egy stalehas apreemente.ole parts, - leveryetreeris 
one through root and stem, branch and leaf, from 
heart to. bark, and from furthest tiny rootlet 
to topmost branch. That grand elm which rises 
near the house high above the chimney grows as 
one, so graceful and yet so grand. So life in 
Christ is one from beginning to end; one in all 
the graces and gifts, all the states and exercises. 
Our tangle and mistiness, our disconnected and 
chaotic thought and feeling, belong not to the 
thing itself. Ina tree stem and boughs, branches 
and twigs and leaves, work, each part for every 
other part. The tough and elastic hickory hangs 
and swings and holds as one. In the old my- 
thology the nine graces dance hand in hand; to- 
gether they tread a common measure. So all 


174 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


the graces are in harmony and helpfulness. As 
in different periods of the season different flowers 
bloom, so yesterday and to-morrow shall call out 
different graces to the common service and beauty 
of the one person. The graces need one another 
for setting and support; each is truly each when 
in the midst of all. It is one life. 

He of whom John the Baptist said, “God giveth 
not the Spirit by measure unto him,” was emi- 
nently good and without sin. The Spirit filled 
Moses and he was wise, filled Joshua and he was 
bold, filled Samson and he was stout, filled the 
Lord and he was good. Character in him was 
preeminent. Take his hatred of moral evil. On 
occasion he was greatly indignant at obstructive 
hypocrites. He seemed to abhor especially cant- 
ing pretense, the old men or the young men“ who 
tithe mint, anise, and cummin, but neglect the 
weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, 
and faith.” On the other hand, he had that op- 
posite and gentle virtue of tenderness. He wept 
over Jerusalem. He said, as he was going to cruci- 
fixion, “ Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for 
me, but for yourselves, and for your children.’ 
He was full of feeling for the poor, despised; 
yet a weeping, penitent woman had crept be- 
hind him at the feast in the Pharisee’s house. 
He graciously drew Peter back after his going 
away. 


A GOOD LIFE ys 


Jesus shows what the presence of the Spirit 
can do where the way is all open. As he took 
his disciples to the lake-side, the grain- fields, the 
grass-fields, and the mountain, with their fullness 
of spiritual suggestion, so now does the Spirit 
take us to Matthew and Mark and Luke and John; 
and the Saviour there leads and teaches the whole 
body of his people, who shall sooner or later there 
spell out the whole lesson of moral truth that 
he taught; nor rest until the whole revelation of 
Scripture concerning goodness in him unfolds to 
their view. 

The extent of Christian goodness is a mooted 
question. The answer seems to depend much 
on what we mean by goodness. Christians will 
agree in much where they each understand what 
the other means. All admit that in the child of 
God there need be no rushing floods, with their 
devastating work; no packing of sand and gravel 
over fair fields, and a whole goodly growth of the 
graces borne down by an overflow of the great 
river of sin. All admit that the work of grace is 
too often incomplete. In the world of crystals 
many an individual crystal has had its free course 
hindered. In the paths of the planets, the won- 
derful circles are somewhat eccentric, and each 
planet is somewhat uneven in its movement. So 
many a Christian has been drawn on one side by 
this influence and on another side by that; by 


176 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


heredity, education, and circumstance; by infirm- 
ity, prejudice, and dislike. We drink not enough 
of the rivers of water; we are touched all too 
lightly by the flaming tongues of fire. Our re- 
ception, by faith, of Him who is the life, is not 
full enough; we- still must go on “ perfecting 
holiness.” 

Let us look forward here. Many a Christian 
is now but as a bank of sand just above the waves 
or as that volcanic peak which rises as an island 
from the floor of the ocean to far above the sur- 
face. Not so hereafter. When this continent 
rose above the sea, summit after summit appeared 
from below upon the waters, making island after 
island. These islands broadened and stretched 
toward one another. More and more the land 
rose and the waters receded until the continent 
had risen from the deep sea, compact and with but 
one ocean shore. So the Christian’s whole broad 
level shall rise in the other world; his breadth 
and height and solidity of character, his greatness. 

Such are some of the essential and elementary 
conceptions of goodness; some of the qualities of 
this fair work of God and man within the soul. 
Such are some of the definite elements of that 
kind of life which more than aught else manifests 
God’s glory upon earth and sets forth his praise. 


Clete det MENS 20,005 
A LOVING LIFE. 


THE Christian life is a sea with many currents 
and multitudinous waves. One manifestation of 
this great and varied life is love. We all know 
what beauty is in charm; such is love. We all 
know what power and skill are in use; such is 
love. A hard, a very hard life for us human 
beings is this loving life to lead, in all its ways. 

The absolute source of a loving life is God. 
He gives to his own this his great-heartedness, 
this his richest gift, this greater than physical 
power, this greater than intellectual power, this 
loving nature; something more lovely, more de- 
sirable, than aught else he could give. , It is his 
own great impulse and nature. We read, “ Every 
one that loveth is born of God;” and again, “‘ He 
that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God 
in him.’ When God fills and dominates him, he 
loves, line for line, as God loves. As the moon 
is in perpetual attendance upon the earth, so is 
he who loves giving perpetual attention to others 

177 


178 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


than himself. And this because the Holy Ghost 
is within him, helping him, winnowing him, and 
filling all his life with the buoyancy and the 
music of heaven. The earth when dry and 
barren, as on the great plains, is refreshed and 
made alive by coursing it with canals from living 
streams. So he who gets into connection with 
the Divine Being gets the spirit of the divine 
love. 

And there are the motives to love. Light is 
ever necessary to the earth in its various beau- 
ties, in its fertile soils, its numerous fields and 
woods and gardens. Light is ever necessary 
to all flowers and fruits, to all animals that 
roam at will or yield to man’s control. So with 
us, knowledge is an instrument of love. All 
through the New Testament we have a set of 
peculiarly Christian motives given us to go by ; 
reasons of action to be especially borne in mind 
as eminently strong and wise and good and in 
harmony with the nature of things. Here is one: 
“God is love.” He hates no person. The spirit 
of hate is a spirit of evil; it poisons the soul and 
sometimes the body. It is the spirit of the devil, 
for we read, “ The devil is come down unto you, 
having great wrath.” Here is another: “We 
love, because He first loved us.” Our Creator, 
he loved us before we knew ourselves. Our 
continual Benefactor, he encircles us and has no 


A LOVING LIFE 179 


distance fromus. Our Friend, he is sympathetic, 
expressive, and effective. As the daughter grows 
to her mother’s size, to renew her mother’s youth 
and beauty, so in this matter of love we are to 
grow to the ‘measure of the stature of God in 
Christ Jesus.” God has taught us to love, im- 
pelled us to love, shamed us to love. Here isa 
third of the peculiarly Scripture motives to love: 
“ Be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted, for- 
giving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake 
hath forgiven you.” Love, because God shows 
so much love as to forgive all, forget all, pass 
over your shortcomings, your outgoings of evil, 
and think a world of you. In general, we learn 
from the Bible that we are to love all men be- 
cause they bear the divine image; because Christ 
died for them and would save them; and finally 
because it pleases God that we should love them. 
If we love him, we willingly incline to love any- 
thing he wishes us to love. 

One of the signs which distinguished Jesus as 
full of the Spirit was an inextinguishable flame 
of love. No man ever had more of pure and 
strong affection for others, for persons few and 
persons many, those of his own friends, his own 
company, his own country, and those of the world. 
His soul went out and came very near to men. 
He saw their necessities, their sorrows, their sen- 
sibilities, their worth. He was genial, gentle, with 


180 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


a great and subduing tenderness, an inexpressible 
feeling. He was willing to die for human interests. 
He is the model of a disinterested, controlling 
affection for others. The vast and quiet and 
strong intellect of this Man of Nazareth was driven 
by love. He was a mighty exemplar of love in 
amighty man. Suppose Napoleon Bonaparte with 
all his force and skill had possessed something 
of the same unselfishness, something of the same 
vast philanthropy. As we know Sirius, Arcturus, 
and the sun itself by their brightness, so we know 
the Spirit by his working this love in his and espe- 
cially in Jesus—this love, the grandest type of 
divine character. 

My thought is that if you are born in Christ, 
and abide in him and think on him, you will 
catch his style of loving; you will get under the 
grand old law of love, get within the sweep of its 
power. The greatest moral spirit of this universe 
will catch you up, and in it you will attain to your 
greatest in gift, in grace, in blessedness. — 

I turn to the nature of love. Love is to be 
genial and appreciative; is to have good-will, 
sympathy ; to have strong affinities and personal 
attachments. It is the very opposite of that 
selfishness which heeds not the law it breaks or 
the feelings it hurts or the injury it does. The 
natural world seems to tell of love in the shining 
of the sun, in the sparkling of the stars, in the 


AILOVING SEIEE 181 


rippling of the water, in the beauty of the flow- 
ers. The human world seems to tell of love in 
the various gladness in man’s heart, and in his 
much fellowship with his fellow-man. 

Love is communicative ; its nature is to go out, 
to reach after others. Not only has the flower 
beauty and fragrance, but it has a thousand little 
pollen-grains that it scatters by every wind that 
touches it; it goes on scattering them with 
boundless prodigality. So is love scattering con- 
tinually. 

Another delightful characteristic of a loving life 
is gentleness. Even in his thought one “ think- 
eth no evil.” This is getting down to the very 
soul. Then speech and action are gentle. One 
has a sense of the everlasting trouble and pathos 
of things; of the general friction, the wear and 
tear, the pain. 

Another choice manifestation of a loving life is 
forbearance; forbearance with the weak, the ig- 
norant, the lax; forbearance under neglect or 
abuse. In Colossians we are bidden to put on 
long-suffering ; to put it on and wear it as we doa 
garment. Jesus bore with the apostles, with Judas, 
with the Jews. He was despised and rejected 
of men, but bore it patiently; still retained his 
affection for men, for the Jews. He felt for the 
end he foresaw from their course, and prayed, 
“* Father, forgive tiempos for they know not what 


182 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


they do.” Was it not for love that he was silent 
and endured? Love is forgiving. It has this 
nobleness. One with full soul answers to Paul’s 
inspired feeling, ‘“‘ As God for Christ’s sake hath 
forgiven you, so also do ye.” He will truly 
pray, ‘‘ Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our 
debtors.’’ What! is he in the fullness of the gifts 
and the glory of God to indulge in little hatreds? 
A loving life is also characterized by a rever- 
ential spirit. One has an appreciative regard for 
all persons, forms, and ways of worth; for every- 
thing that is true or beautiful or good, in whom- 
soever or in whatsoever found; be it manhood or 
motherhood; be it patience or self-denial in devo- 
tion to others; be it animal or human heroism. 
And love may rise to enthusiasm; may rise to 
unexpected and enthusiastic ways. It may live 
and defy ridicule and criticism, as did the woman 
who washed the Saviour’s feet with her tears and 
wiped them with her hair. Love may become so 
strong as to have certain freedoms, even as the 
climbing wild vine takes liberties with the tree: 
winding round the trunk, crawling round the 
branches, spreading and drooping, and rising and 
festooning. One in his love to Christ may feel 
as gleeful and as cheerful as in holiday the chil- 
dren who visit lake or woods, or climb the hill, 
or wander down the stream. He is not careless, 
not going backward, not crossing the will of God; 


A LOVING LIFE 183 


but he has the freedom of smiles and laughter, of 
songs and greetings. In some things love will 
take its own course. Some in that which they 
see and feel spring out of and forget themselves. 
Zaccheus restored fourfold and divided the re- 
mainder with the poor. His love to the Lord 
that had saved him was in the might of a new 
great nature. A great revolution was wrought 
in him, and he joyfully made thorough work of 
it. There is a love that goes beyond law, as 
did the love of Mary, the sister of Lazarus. In 
the hunger of her love for her great Lord, and in 
the beauty and blessedness of it, “then took 
Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard, very 
costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped 
his feet with her hair;” shrinking, but so preoc- 
cupied, so devoted, so grateful, so filled with the 
love and help of Jesus, that she forgot the cold 
and critical observers, and for Jesus, Jesus only, 
whom she saw, she did her daring, costly deed. 
The affection touched him deeply. 

Let me now speak of the objects of love. It 
is of this life in God as of the life of a continent: 
the range is very great, the range of thought and 
feeling, of speech and action. Yet the great prin- 
ciple is love and the great object is God. Here 
is the law and the gospel and Christian experience. 
When as ina bright and breezy day one looks upon 
the shadows of the clouds sweeping across the 


184 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


landscape, and catches the inspiration of the whole 
scene, he can say that he loves nature. A person 
elate, looking upon the infinite sky and seeing 
bright stars shine out in the warm heavens of a 
summer night, can feel to love what he beholds. 
So here, when one sees and appreciates, he loves 
Him who among beings is as the sun among the 
planets; gets attracted to him centrally with all 
the soul. 

By the law of gravity the planets swing round 
the sun and the satellites swing round the planets. 
By the law of gravity all bodies, if unsupported, 
fall downward, and if supported, press downward. 
The great force, a falling force, a drawing force, 
both in space and on the earth, is a force of at- 
traction. Of necessity there must be such a law 
if the universe is to exist. Now when I describe 
this law I somewhat describe the law of love to 
God. Or, again, so intense is the vital energy in 
the movements within a tree as to draw the sap 
from the roots upward through stem and branches. 
Now this force in the organic world illustrates the 
rising of the affectionate heart Godward, the draw- 
ing, inclining, moving of the soul Godward, sim- 
ply, regularly, naturally. Yes, the Christian loves 
God. 

When it is fulfilled in you, “I will dwell in 
them, and walk in them,” you first of all love 
God; you like to read of, hear of, think of him; 


A LOVING LIFE 185 


you worship and serve him. Your treasure ac- 
cumulates, your companionship increases in him, 
the measure of your soul is full with the thought 
of him, you are aglow with affection. You sum 
up things in him, even as the eye all the things 
of the landscape into one picture: the crooked 
with the straight, the points and the planes, the 
forms and the colors; no error, no confusion, and 
not an object missing. So you see the whole 
world as one and in connection with God. You 
see it not as it is, the thing itself, but as he made 
it and would have it, and works in it and for it. 
But you also perceive zm, so secret and yet 
finding his way in, so a comfort and safeguard, 
so wonderful in his love, so adorable in himself. 
You love him. 

But the Holy Spirit within you is “in power ”’ 
in another direction. ‘ Christ liveth in you 


) 


to 
move you out unto others, your fellow-creatures ; 
topactualize: them. to: youito: give you ustrone 
affection for them. The divine action on you 
will give you many movings toward them. That 
personal force, that dominating influence, will ex- 
pand your mind and enlarge your heart concern- 
ing them. You will go out and stay out of your- 
self. Here come, as from nowhere else, justice, 
brotherhood, humanity, in this world; interest in 
persons and in masses of persons, in communities 
and churches and lands in their sum, in their 


186 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


great amounts of character and happiness. To 
him who is moved of the Spirit every man signi- 
fies something, and people are the most precious 
things in the world. He 1s like salt and leaven 
when in contact with that which has affinity, ever 
putting himself forth. 

You love even the uncongenial and unlovely, 
yes, even him who dislikes you, frets at you, 
and opposes you. You even bring dislike and 
hatred into subjection to Christ. With God in 
you, you may well begin to look out and love all 
things, your indifference to others be ended, your 
dislikes and spites and revenges, your coldness 
and sullenness be over. New visions are in your 
sky; all you meet are lovely; you have come 
into great possessions; you have realized great 
hopes; you love all men. You have charity in 
all its various kinds. One illustration was given 
by Jesus in his parable of the Good Samaritan. 
You have courtesy in all its various ways. You 
will tend spontaneously to right manner. Flow- 
ers want no rules to be fragrant; springs want no 
rules to bubble up. The woman who anointed 
the feet of Jesus in recognition of what he had 
done for her did it without compulsion or com- 
mand, did it freely and naturally. In short, tell 
him who would do his duty to love. It is the 
simplest way by which to know our duty, and 
the strongest power by which to do our duty. 


A LOVING LIFE 187 


You are to love fellow-Christians. Were you 
away in Africa, a man from your own section 
would be wonderfully attractive. He would 
stand for home, stand for all the friends there. 
So the child of God stands for God, the people 
of God stand for God. And you love them some- 
what as you love him. Christ said, ‘“‘ As I have 
loved you, that ye also love one another.” His 
affection is the standard. No conception by 
glorified spirits or by angels can grasp the mag- 
nitude of his great loving, its breadth and com- 
pass, its depth and endurance. It is a sky, it is 
an ocean. When the final and heavenly state 
is reached, what reconciliations, rectifications, 
understandings; what affections, what forgive- 
ness, when we, if we get to that, are delivered 
from our delusions about others, and when what 
is hidden in them from us shall come forth! 
Aye, the reach of our hearts shall be much farther 
than it is here; we shall feel the force of others’ 
attraction much more than we do now. We 
shall comprehend more, be more ardent, more 
generous. 

As to its place, love is the chief thing. It is 
the great character of God, the great character 
of Christ. In the generations that sin and suffer 
and die, he bears their toil and struggle upon his 
heart, their sin and sorrows. Love is the great 
character of all the noblest of earth, Human 


188 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


love is the fairest flower that blooms on human 
soil, and spiritual love is the fairest flower that 
blooms on spiritual soil. In the circle of the 
graces love sits as queen. Of all the lives that 
one can lead not one can be as good as this. A 
thoroughly affectionate nature is the finest in 
existence. The whole being is filled and charged 
with a love deep and glad, or sad, an abounding 
love, a love holding one and taking him up and 
carrying him forward. He is the finest man we 
know of—he who appreciates others, sympathizes 
with them, helps them. Most heavenlike is he 
who lets life through all the compass of his years 
be a life of love. Most meet is he for the in- 
heritance of the children of light. That country 
is so blessed because all there have received fully 
of the Master’s spirit. It indites their songs, it 
creates their fellowship, it gives their rest in God 
and his people. Love there is at its broadest 
and deepest; has all its varied activity, all its 
forms and extensions. Love results there in the 
glory of a fellowship real and deep, making 
blessed every participant. Love there is ad- 
vanced to a heavenly flame, the glory of which 
is over all that land and ever shall be. 

As to its use: we need this love to God, to 
be the soul of all patience and prayer, the soul of 
all praise and service. Love settles a good many 
cases of conscience, where the thought of duty 


EE —— a a 


A LOVING LIFE 189 


runs to morbidness and sophistry. It does away 
with a great deal of legality, a great deal of pre- 
judice, of contentiousness, of pride of opinion, 
all of which foster ignorance and error. It helps 
a great deal of obedience, making it not from 
fear or reward, but from the heart, and therefore 
easy. 

And we need love, to be the power to make us 
see, in a glow of our own making, those who are 
about us; to make us see them in a splendor and 
a beauty both real and unreal. Love is a talis- 
manic power to turn what we touch into what 
we will. Such often is earthly love, such is 
heavenly love. It leads us to glorify; it ideal- 
izes. Many people are now regarded in a way 
which is quite different from that in which they 
were once regarded. Many a person appears fair 
and bright. The sunlight falls on this and that 
fair scene of fellowship. The whole land of life 
and work is made to seem a glorious land. The 
days of love are good and peaceful. We feast in 
mind and soul; we are set free from much of 
evil: the noises of strife die away. We rise and 
fall as a vessel on the sea; a fair wind catches 
and carries us, and eagerly we sail forward and 
outward into the boundless waters. 

But the great blessing of love is beyond your- 
self, is upon those you love, is upon the world 
you live in. The appearances, the ministries 


I9O THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


and intercessions of this exalted life certainly 
benefit. A thoroughly loving life is to those in 
contact with it a vision, a gladness, and a gain. 
Thus men may be “rooted and grounded in 
love.” This love need be no mystery, no unat- 
tainable possession; it may fill you with desire 
and power to go among people. God clears the 
vision, invigorates the heart, makes easy the way. 
When once the road over the Simplon was made, 
how easy to go over the Alps!—winding slopes 
instead of abrupt precipices, a smooth carriage- 
way instead of a difficult foot-path. So now 
how easy the perceptions, purposes, feelings of 
love, the passage from narrowness to breadth 
and from shallowness to depth, the expanding 
to take in many and the dividing to take in each! 
In a general way you were kindly and friendly, 
but this is more. The rudest savage reckons upon 
his fingers, adds up with pebbles and shells. As 
time goes on the tribe receives culture; arith- 
metic develops, until mathematics in still higher 
forms is born and grows. So love in the heart 
has had a scientific development. As when the 
night is over and with fresh bodies we enter upon 
a new day, so now. Yesterday has come to an 
end, the old scores are crossed out. The book 
of life has leaves to be turned over one after 
another. When “God dwelleth in us, and his 
love is perfected in us,” we have turned over 


A LOVING LIFE IQI 


those leaves which tell how, as the days have 
gone by, we have learned to dislike this and that 
thing, to hate this and that person. There is a 
reconcilement of all differences. Whatever may 
be outside, rough or smooth, graceful or uncouth, 
pure or defiled, we like men. More and more 
let men broaden and stretch toward one another ; 
more and more let the land rise and the waters 
fall, until a continent appears, in all the life of 
which love shall reign. 


(CEA Reel Lis 
CHRISTIAN HOPE. 


To have hope deep and strong, now manifest 
in this and now in that, is a part of human nature. 
It makes up materially the brightness and motive 
power of human life. It is a deep and powerful 
force for life and health and length of days. He 
who has given up all hope and yielded to despair 
is forlorn indeed. Certain pines grow on the most 
meager soil of sand or rock—live and thrive on 
many a low island, on many a tropical shore— 
and in addition beautify the landscape with the 
green of their leaves and the crimson of their 
fruit. Thus flourish the hopes of him who lives 
the hidden life; lives in intimate union with God: 
who says of him, “Thou art my hiding-place.”’ 

Hope characterizes the Bible. All the prom- 
ises lead to hope, all the Psalms are full of it, half 
of the prophecies create it, the Gospels are full 
of it, the epistles are full of it. Notwithstanding 
present clouds or darkness, the Bible writers never 


waver in their faith in love and bounty at the last. 
192 


CHRISTIAN HOPE 193 


As were the children of Israel, so ever are all 
the children of God—a people of hope: singer 
and prophet and apostle on the one hand, and 
that prodigious number of saints without name 
or notice of men on the other hand. 

The Lord is ever drawing us to something yet 
to come. His baptism looks forward: “ For if 
we have been planted together in the likeness of 
his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his 
resurrection.” If we have the germ, we shall 
have the stem, the branches, and the leaves; we 
shall have the full size and the full substance of 
the tree. The Lord’s Supper looks forward: 
“For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink 
this cup, ye do show the Lord’s death till he 
come.” It is as the bud in winter, the little single 
bud that in spring shall open into stem and leaves. 
And so in the history of the church: ever Abram 
is going to be Abraham; ever the Jew expects 
the Messiah, and when he is come ever the Chris- 
tian expects him to come again. 

The early preachers constantly stimulated 
themselves and their hearers by the prizes here- 
after. Paul says, “I press toward the mark for 
the prize of the high calling of God.” Even 
Jesus, ‘‘for the joy that was set before him, en- 
dured the cross.” 

God is the source and support of hope, first, 
in being in part its object. Heart and loyalty 


194 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


and faithfulness are to him. And the soul sayss 
“Thou, Lord, art my hope.”’ You are, we will 
say, using his instrumentalities: then be not fear- 
ful and despondent, but secure and sanguine, 
even enthusiastic. Your very end and design, 
your spirit, are from him and for him: then be 
animated, sustained, and carried forward. The 
Holy Ghost in his ordinances is like a great 
mountain. From springs within and eternal snows 
without flow down streams to water the valleys 
below, to spread over the neighboring plains; 
streams of various size, making together a whole 
system of flowing, draining, irrigating waters— 
the great benefit of a large country. 

But God is also the source of hope by his in- 
dwelling. He persuades us, moves, makes us to 
hope; leads us to look forward sometimes even 
with assurance of hope; even works in his own 
a prophetic belief—‘ revealeth his secret unto his 
servants the prophets.” 

Indeed, every other grace is creative of hope; 
such is faith, faith in God and faith in relation 
to persons and things, events and situations yet 
coming. No one who lives but oftentimes has 
to wait. Sometimes, in the waiting, faith fails. 
We read it in the Psalms, read it in Jeremiah, 
see it a little in John the Baptist: sight, reason, 
faith, failing. The delay seems final, the entangle- 
ment complete ; prayer is not answered ; the anch- 


CHRISTIAN HOPE 195 


or drags. But if, temporarily thus despondent, 
a return to God takes place, there is a revival of 
hope. Never does the man divinely filled become 
desperate indeed, never is that sad experience his. 
And often he is swallowed up in his beliefs, in his 
hopes; he takes no account of counter-statements, 
counter-appearances; the anchor holds. When 
the sea is vexed with a great wind, when the 
tides seek the shore and all the coast is roaring, 
then, amid the tearing sea and sky, the ship, with 
split sails and drenched decks, does not strike, for 
her anchor holds. She is not driven ashore for 
all the weather and the sea. So the believer’s 
vessel need never get unmanageable in any gale 
that blows. Extremely bad weather the ship may 
now and then have, but it need never be a wreck. 
At the worst, on the moving sea the anchor takes 
hold on the unmoving land. We read, ‘“ Which 
hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure 
and steadfast, and which entereth into that within 
the veil’’—that is, to ‘‘ where Christ sitteth on 
the right hand of God.” Here is a hope that 
“maketh not ashamed.” 

Then, again, love is a support of hope. We 
read, “‘God is not unrighteous to forget your work 
and labor of love. . . . And we desire that every 
one of you do show the same diligence to the full 
assurance of hope.’ The activities of love make 
a person hopeful. Diligence in loving deeds tends 


196 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


decidedly that way, and hope becomes brighter 
and brighter. So, also, Christians know that 
prayer sometimes has in it that which makes 
them ‘“‘rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” 

As to the objects of hope. Those who have 
the divine indwelling expect even material things, 
the necessaries of life, because, in the first place, 
encouraged by the Word. “The poor commit- 
teth himself unto thee; thou art the helper of 
the fatherless.” ‘Casting all your care upon 
him ’’—making no exception. ‘ Seek ye first the 
kingdom of God, and al! these things shall be 
added unto you.” Then, again, he who is the 
Lord’s has warmth and richness and imagination 
given even to his material hopes by the thought 
that the Lord has named him in baptism, com- 
forted him in ordinances, served him in provi- 
dences. So, then, some Scripture is sealed to 
him; some season or help, some hill Mizar is re- 
called; or some deep feeling exists of itself that 
God has made the case his care. 

Those in the Spirit need not despair of relief 
from trouble; may hope that the Vine will ever 
be sending sap into the branch, however bruised 
it be; that the Lord will carry up and on and over 
unto the end of life; over enemies, temptations, 
disappointments, bereavements; will cause to 
mount above all the low levels. Does the thunder- 
storm come over the lake and catch the little 


CHRISTIAN HOPE 197 


craft? Christ isin the ship. His people are to 
him the most precious things in the world. Then 
say and sing with the psalmist, ‘““ Hope thou in 
God, for I shall yet praise him.”’ 

So, also, you who have “ Christ in you”? may 
look for continuing grace. The sea-anemone 
survives boiling and freezing and cutting in two; 
such are the powers of self-preservation in that 
little animal. There is the perseverance of the 
saints, the kingdom of heaven in the heart, strong- 
est by nature of all kingdoms. You may hope 
to have God ever reaching you by the means of 
grace—by prayer seasons and Bible reading, by 
Lord’s days and church services. 

Then, too, if in the Lord, you have promise of 
increasing grace: more enjoyment of the Word, 
more dwelling in the world invisible, more con- 
stant vision of the Master. 

The Christian has hope of a world to come, to 
which this is as the circle of the valley is to the 
circle of the mountain-top. This is as when early 
morning retains somewhat of the darkness. The 
light is pale, gray, and tender, and sometimes the 
twilight lingers long. Scripture symbolism tells 
us of a better country, a city, a house, a home. 
And in the vision there is substantial truth; not 
a dusty and shadowy land, a bloodless, pale, and 
spectral body. Even as while we are busy in the 
field, the house, or by the way, we occasionally 


198 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


look up into the great sky, so do we occasionally 
see the land that is very wide. “I will behold 
thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, 
when I awake, with thy likeness.” ‘We shall 
be like him; for we shall see him as he is.”’ 

As the buried’seed has, after germination, hope 
to reach sun and air; hope of root and stem, 
leaf and blossom; hope to be a living plant, some 
bright form amid all the magnificence of earthly 
forms, so when “ He dwelleth in you’ you may 
look forward to some transcendent glory. As the 
fading leaf has the bud of the future leaf, that 
shall have form when the present leaf is formless, 
so they who are in Him who, though without 
form, is behind all form, can say, ‘We know 
that, if our earthly house of this tabernacle were 
dissolved, we have a building of God, a house 
not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” 

In nature, everything is going forward to some- 
thing else, but it is in much an eternal cycle, as 
Ecclesiastes has it: the stream running dry to fill 
again; the seed becoming a plant, to leave again a 
seed. But the Spirit has power, life, and immor- 
tality. So, then, weak or failing, hope in this 
divine indwelling; hope in the Lord of nature, 
grace, and glory; and rest not until the whole 
revelation of his coming unfolds to your view. 
Let the wind of the Spirit even now arise and 
clear away the mists that hang over the valley. 


CHRISTIAN HOPE 199 


Live in the light, let it in in streams, diffuse it 
everywhere. If your windows are broad enough, 
clear enough, high enough, you will have this 
light of the coming glory of God. In that light 
we shall stand in the light of a thousand lamps, 
of a thousand electric arcs; we shall stand in the 
light of the sun. Well indeed may we, in the 
reality of God and Christ and salvation, be the 
subjects of hope. Well may we have hope, if 
possessed of all this world of the indwelling, with 
all the saving works, the natural and supernatural 
wonders. 


GHAPTE ROX X LVa 
PATIENCE. 


PATIENCE is a manly, dignified way of going 
on; is self-control under provocation, forbearance 
with greater and lesser evils, the ignoring or en- 
during of them. It implies composure of mind; 
the absence of all tumult of thought, all excess 
of passion, all unseemliness or excitement of con- 
duct, all feeling unkindly toward that which has 
created our trouble, all unforgiving feeling, all 
displeasure with persons or things. It is the con- 
trary to that feeling which nurses the grudge, the 
dissatisfaction, the complaining. There are be- 
setments; there is no apparent answer to prayer; 
there is work delayed. Patience is to bear up 
bravely in all these conditions and events. 

Patience is a high and difficult state. It is 
somewhat a finishing work, after you have done 
all that you can, to stand and endure that which 
you cannot help any more than you can help the 
wind’s blowing. You may moan and groan, and 


fly out, but you cannot stop some persons or 
200 


PATIENCE 201 


things any more than you can stop the rain. 
God has to be patient and you have to be. You 
make up your mind to endure that great rebellion 
which is going on, so far as you cannot stop it. 
Jesus said, ‘“‘ Offenses must come.’ 
the arrangements. A patient demeanor in suffer- 


) 


They are in 


ing is a fine test, an excellent criterion of charac- 
ter; fortitude in bearing burdens and pains. And 
to this great state the divine indwelling is a con- 
stant help, a help to all natural patience. 

There are natural provisions of defense against 
evil. You notice that nature is full of every sort 
of protective device. The sandy coasts of the 
North Sea preserve themselves from wasting 
by the running roots of vast masses of creeping 
plants; so the dunes of the Bay of Biscay by 
forests of man’s planting. Every herb of the 
field has these devices in root and stem, in leaf 
and flower. Every animal has strength or speed 
or craft. Every Christian has his protection. 
When Christiana and the children set out for the 
Celestial City, a special guardian was given them, 
one Great-heart. Your native powers are a help 
to you against your enemies. Society around is 
a help. You are far from being naked and de- 
fenseless. Even so may we be patient because of 
our gracious equipment; patient with our imper- 
fect selves and patient with this imperfect world. 

In the graces we are patient; this in resolution, 


202 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


consecration; this in faith, confidence in God that 
all his paths are mercy and truth; this in hope, 
this in general hope, or in the specific hope of 
removing or lessening or of help in enduring 
the evil. “It is good that a man should both hope 
and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord.” 
‘Be patient,” said James: ‘ for the coming of the 
Lord draweth nigh ’’—a great lifting off and up, 
a mighty change; the Lord fully manifest. You 
shall see him as not now, receive him as not now, 
be filled and surrounded as not now. 

In the means of grace we are patient. David 
in his depression prayed; so Asaph and Job and 
Paul. Many a person has become patient in read- 
ing the Bible. The pleasure and the rest in this 
are as for the tired to sit on the shore or bathe in 
the sea. | 

In the union of Christ with his own they are 
patient in all the might and the blessedness of pa- 
tience ; in abiding in him who works not so much 
upon us mechanically as in us dynamically; in 
him who works in us as the sap in the tree or 
the blood in the body. In physiology is the 
great understanding of pathology; in the organs 
in health the understanding of them in disease. 
In the divinely filled person is the great power 
to endure with composure all evil, is a trium- 
phant force. You so receive as to rest from all 
improper reasonings, all undue desires, all dis- 


PATIENCE 203 


quieting fears, all excessive conflict. You have 
entered into all patience. ‘“‘ Job sinned not, nor | 
charged God foolishly.”” David said of Shimei: 
“Tet him curse, because the Lord hath said unto 
him, Curse David.’’ The ancient poet, with the 
Spirit in him, said in his gloom, plaintively and 
pitifully, “I was dumb, I opened not my mouth; 
because thou didst it.” But our Lord is the most 
remarkable instance of patience. His was a pa- 
tience in very frequent exercise, in various direc- 
tions also, and toa very high degree. He was in 
more than one wild sea and driven by more than 
one storm-wind; tried over Israel and over many 
things as no words can tell; and yet he was pa- 
tient. He was tried over much beside wandering 
Israel in our old world; over the mischiefs men 
make and their cruefties; over the appealing of 
those who suffer, and those who are dreading 
what is to come; over those who are shut in and 
cannot get out; over the ships that go down, the 
sinking of so much. The Father was with him 
in his experiences of sorrow; and in him was 
patience in all its form and color, all its bright- 
ness—a living grace. By the spiritual imagina- 
tion to apprehend this strong patience of Jesus, 
in all he said and did and was, is to enter into 
the realm of the spiritual and behold things which 
are unseen and eternal. So likewise can he be 
patient who can say, “Christ liveth in me.” 


204 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


Again, bear up because in this interior life you 
have help against the limitations of your nature, the 
imperfections of your training or that of others; 
help, in short, to bear all the various evils that try 
your patience. Some men seem to think that all is 
fate, that instead of arms and hands and helpers 
from the unseen there are only walls. No; we 
are not buried alive in a tomb. He who while 
immanent is transcendent, while in the world is 
above the world, is more than a geometer who 
draws the wonderful curves of all the orbits of 
the solar system; is more than a machinist who 
has set up that system. He is more than a God 
of law; he is a God of thoughtful, sleepless love. 
In proportion as it is understood that he is free, 
sensitive, and loving do we get rid of the idea of 
fate, of an eternal fixedness of things. As we 
are changing our view of the fixedness of nature, 
sO may we change our view of the fixedness of 
God, and feel that he is none the less perfect. 
His is not an eternal, unchanging nature in every- 
thing. In him thoughts come and go, feelings 
rise and fall, changes take place. He feels with 
us in all our toil and trial; is ready to relieve 
us in all that puzzles or distresses us: this 
going out of light in the young man’s soul, this 
darkness of error, this seeing the face we love up- 
turned in death. Let us “have the patience of 
hope.”’ 


PATIENCE 208 


Many are the promises of him who is unseen 
of us; every promise, too, a virtual, a special 
power, and to be counted on every time the con- 3 
ditions are met—something as sure as any natural 
law. With clearer insight of these promises you 
get a firmer grasp; with comprehension comes 
energy, power to hold on; with the broader mind 
comes the broader heart, and vice versa, with 
the better perception comes the greater help and 
sympathy, given and received. There are times 
when patience abounds, because the believer is 
stirred by new views, stirred by revelations of 
the Lord. 

Because of these promised helps we are patient. 
Take the guiding. In hindrances, hesitations, 
hurts, you patiently wait, because you pray with 
the psalmist, ““ Lead me. . . in thy righteousness 
because of mine enemies.’’ You await the Lord’s 
leading because the sweet singer says, “If I take 
the wings of the morning, and dwell in the utter- 
most parts of the sea; even there shall thy hand 
lead me.’ Another who in praying but formu- 
lates the prayer of all believers, pleads, “For thy 
name’s sake lead me, and guide me.” 

Take the guarding. You are in dangers patient 
in God, the sure defense of his people. ‘‘ The 
name of the Lord is a strong tower: the righteous 
safe within the 
strong walls. In vain would the marauders of the 


9) 


runneth into it, and is safe; 


206 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


desert assault the convent walls on Mount Sinai for 
full a thousand years. Sometimes his enemies do 
not even know where to look for him, he is hid- 
den, he who “ dwelleth in the secret place of the 
Most High.” Truly may he be tranquil in their 
hunting. Thus did ancient saints call up in song 
their deliverances; thus laugh in the joy of their 
escapes, and exult. There are lions and dogs, 
and bulls of Bashan; there are fire and water, and 
snares and plots; yet may men burst out in praise: 
their Redeemer is, so great, their redemption so 
much. 

Take the general keeping. ‘The Lord is thy 
keeper ;” in summer or winter, in health or sick- 
ness, in work or out of work, at home or among 
strangers, on the land or on the water; thy keeper 
in body and name and estate and soul. Yes, let 
him be patient who has “to eat of the hidden 
manna,” and has the “white stone, and in the 
stone, anew name written, which no man knoweth 
saving he that receiveth it.” 

So then, “ Let us run with patience the race 
that is set before us, looking unto Jesus.” He 
can help in all the pain, the tediousness, the dis- 
appointment, and the struggle. “ Strengthened,” 
said the Apostle, “ with all might, according to 
God's glorious power, unto all patience.” You 
go through this world like a ship through the 
rolling, beating waves; thumped and pounded it 


PATIENCE 207 


is, strained even; so do you bear up and on, 
over want and pain and obstacle. Do not enter 
into too much contention with disorder. ‘ The 
mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; 
but my kindness shall not depart from thee, .. . 
saith the Lord.” It is faithful, perennial, perma- 
nent; be it morning or evening, June or January, 
daylight or dark, quiet or stormy, it shall never 
depart, be never-failing but ever-prevailing. ‘Thy 
faithfulness shalt thou establish in the very hea- 
vens;”” not in the earth, for that is swept with 
storm, covered with flood, burned by fire, shaken 
by earthquake—the earth shall pass away ; but in 
the heavens of God, in his being and character, 
promise and performance. 


CHAPTER XXV. 
FELLOWSHIP WITH GOD. 


WE have various companionships that we form 
in the neighborhood, the community, the church, 
or among those of our calling. We have quite a 
little of our life and happiness in these, and some- 
thing of our profit. Each of these is proper and 
somewhat peculiar. But there is a companion- 
ship which in beauty and honor, in life and growth, 
in general blessedness, is ahead of all these. 
When you once get adjusted to it, there is no 
companionship equal to companionship with God. 

John said, “Truly our fellowship is with the 
Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.” They 
to whom John addressed these words were out- 
wardly of little account, they had no great com- 
panions, they were in frequent cases accounted 
as the offscouring of all things. Yet they had a 
very desirable and honorable fellowship “with 
the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.” To 
this Paul adds “fellowship with the Spirit.” 


208 


FELLOWSHIP WITH GOD 209 


No mere bit of life in nature, no animal, no 
mere man has this companionship; only he who 
has the divine indwelling; in him is effectually © 
created this intimacy. We read, “‘ God is faith- 
ful, through whom ye were called into the fellow- 
ship of his Son.” God has given this revelation, 
this openness of himself, and these impulses on 
your part. The Spirit gives his life and activity 
and calls out yours. 

It is a great thing to have nature with us in 
all its varied processes and industries; in all its 
exuberance and infinite variety, its green, its 
growth, and all its ripening product. But it ts 
much greater to have the God of nature with us; 
the free Spirit who is above nature, not shut up 
by it; the God the singers of Israel sang of; the 
God the New Testament continually speaks of. 
You may walk with him like Enoch. You may 
come out of a narrow into a broad world; may 
come out of a cell into the broad divine life. It 
fills nature, it fills you. He who is in sun and 
moon, in sky and earth, in the air that blows and 
the water that flows, is in especial connection with 
his own. The Spirit comes and goes. He car- 
ries from God to us and from us to God, even as 
the wind carries the moisture back and forth in 
an eternal round from sea to land and land to 
sea. No finite spirit is deprived of the privilege 
of intercourse with the Infinite Spirit. The 


210 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


Father of all spirits waits to enter into commu- 
nion with any spirit. 

In much we are all of us alone, yet there need 
be no such thing as interior solitude. He who is - 
in the Lord is never absolutely alone. Isolated 
he may be, secluded in some remote place, some 
room or field or piece of wood, or along some 
road, but he need never be away from Christ. 
He may ever travel on and on, bright with the 
divine brightness, helped with the divine help, 
and in company with the Divine Being. In those 
passages through this world where no friend is 
with us, nor kinsman, Christ is with us. You 
may be sick, or losing what you value, or be in 
grave difficulties; the Lord is with you. You 
are not able to go down into the grave, to fol- 
low one who is gone, but you may discern the 
Lord standing beside you as did Mary at the 
mouth of the sepulcher. In that passage to the 
next world, in which passage your friends can- 
not go with you, you need never be absolutely 
alone. Christ can be ever with you. He said 
to his workers, “Lo, I am with you alway.” He 
takes away the depression, the loneliness, just as 
the swollen river sweeps away the drift of its 
banks. Jesus who came to earth has come to us. 
He who was born in the grotto-stable is born in 
us. It is for you and me, like the shepherds, to 


FELLOWSHIP WITH GOD 211 


see him. It is for you and me, like the twelve, 
to speak with him. 

I pass to the nature of fellowship with God. 
He who has it is single and he is double. There 
is the human and there is the divine being. These 
have wonderful connection, correspondence, join- 
ing, close coérdination. The companionship of 
neighbors, friends, and relations poorly images it. 
The tenderness and affection of our earthly com- 
munions poorly image it. The beauty and peace, 
the wonder and glory of the marriage commu- 
nion of earth do not fully represent this heavenly 
communion with us of the Lord of earth and 
heaven. 

In this fellowship there is nearness. Communti- 
cation with a friend afar off, by letter or telegram 
or verbal message, is something; but being face 
to face is far more. 

In this fellowship there is affection, first, on 
God’s part. His affection has depth like the 
ocean, extent like the sky, freeness like the air. 
It moves in creation, it moves in providence, it 
moves in grace. Christ’s love is not all pure 
benevolence, a love of good-will, of benefaction, 
but is in part a love of affection. He said, “I go 
and prepare a place for you; that where I am, 
there ye may be also.’’ There is love on your 
part. Ina certain way nature seeks God for her 


212 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


life, her growth, her rest. Inacertain way every 
one seeks God to taste the meat and drink he 
gives; and sometimes, consciously or uncon- 
sciously, seeks not only the gifts but the Giver 
himself. The Christian loves him, the Heavenly 
Father, and cries with David, “O Lord my 
rock, be not silent to me.” The Christian has 
admiration, contemplation, benediction for Christ ; 
remembers his birthday and his death-day ; has 
a voice calling in prayer and resounding in praise ; 
has in all his being regard for him who was born 
in Bethlehem, in far from blessed state, but now 
lives 


“ Above all glory raised; 
Friend of sinners is his name.” 


In this fellowship there is actual interchange 
all the day long. “I will come in to him and 
will sup with him, and he with me.” Some of it 
is while reading the Bible, some in prayers here 
and there and many times, some in singing, some 
at the Lord’s table; here intimacy, refreshing, 
eminently communion; hence we say, “ the Com- 
munion.”’ There is this interchange in all the 
regular formal offices of the church, and also in 
all irregular ways; the opening and speech of the 
soul, secret giving and receiving by ways that 
those dear to each other know how to use. 

This fellowship gives enjoyment to each party. 


FELLOWSHIP WITH GOD 213 


God is as pleased with the regard of others as are 
youand I. He finds in their responsive affection 
all that you or I do. Here, perhaps, is a part of 
the infinite blessedness of the three persons of the 
Trinity. He enjoys confidence and friendship, 
is the poorer without them and the richer with 
them. And for you and me there are sunshine 
and warmth in this heavenly giving and taking. 

In short, it is a mutual communication of good 
things. The Lord’s benedictions rest upon you, 
his Word enters your mind, his Spirit is within. 
In return you have faith, prayer, and praise. 
Prayer, the “ spirit of supplications,” falls on you; 
and in return you “ pray in the Holy Ghost.”” Thus 
there is conscious and active intercourse—tender 
and intimate interchange of love and communica- 
tion; everlastingly free donation ; consent to it all, 
and renewed consent. 

Again, this fellowship increases. Acquain- 
tance gives knowledge, knowledge gives affec- 
tion, affection gives intercourse. Take any dis- 
tant star into the range of a powerful telescope, 
and that minute and beautiful point of light in- 
creases and blazes until you see, evidently, that 
it is a sun. So comes upon the soul the vision 
of the great King, the sense of his majesty, his 
excellence, his attraction. 

Finally, this fellowship exists in the life to 
come. The psalmist says, “As for me, I shall 


214: THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


behold thy face in righteousness.”’ The Revela- 
’ not see him 
bodily, not see him directly; no, not this. But in 
the face the particular personality is most mani- 
fest. They shall contemplate God’s most expres- 
sive works, his ‘most characteristic, his highest 
manifestations, his most expressive glory. This 
is his face. Aside from this intellectual appre- 


hension of God there is the direct vision of Jesus. 


torisays,, -lhey-shall seeshicuace,. 


Those in heaven, the saints, one and many, see 
the Lord. Many are the greetings in that joyful 
land. Paul desired to depart and be with Christ. 
It is a glimpse into his very soul; we become 
aware of his insatiable longings to be with his 
exalted Lord, himself exalted also; longings to 
take in and give out in various coming and going. 


CEA DE Rise OV 
FELLOWSHIP WITH OTHERS. 


IN inquiries about the divine indwelling in its 
workings we come to Christian fellowship. See- 
ing ourselves in God we see ourselves in one an- 
other. The divine intent is that the Christian 
shall be with others. The Saviour’s prayer was 
sthat they may be made pertéect in one.” i7The 
divine working within naturally issues in this. 
The mighty heavenly impulse comes out in ten- 
derness, affection, brotherhood, communication. 

The divine indwelling and the love created is- 
sue spontaneously in Christian fellowship. Nat- 
urally the human heart calls for human company. 
Continually persons talk with and visit one another. 
There is an instinctive or acquired feeling, also, 
of the helpfulness of this: that only with others 
is a man most himself; that only with them does 
he do his best. Men are not only social, but 
they form or they approve of society. Fellow- 
ship gets the benefit of the aggregate; makes all 


the parts to work for the benefit of each; makes 
215 


216 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


the provision made by all go to each. Soa per- 
son gets a vastly better service than he would if 
alone ; gets a better table, better clothing, better 
housing, greater safety, greater comfort. Society 
is a great blessing to the individual person, and 
religious society. is a great blessing to the reli- 
gious person; a great help and encouragement; 
it brightens the face, cheers the heart, and helps 
the soul. 

As fire makes the dull coal to glow and the 
black mass from the scuttle to send out light and 
heat, so love ignites the soul and makes it burn. 
As the fire shows its life in the way of flame, 
makes burning and bright gases continually to 
rise, so the fire of love. As the sun quickens, 
and in the cold there is heat, and roots and seeds, 
plants, shrubs, and trees do thrive, so love works. 
The moment a person is converted he wants to 
find other Christians, and goes to find them. He 
may have been indifferent, but now he is eager. 
He goes for his kith and kin; he offers greetings 
and receives congratulations ; his social disposition 
becomes active. 

As under the stimulus of light and heat certain 
plants open their flowers in the morning, and 
on the withdrawal of the stimulus close them at 
night, so in the economy of nature and grace there 
are stimulants to the opening of Christian hearts 
to one another; influences that make Christian 


FELLOWSHIP WITH OTHERS 27 


social life to flourish; powers of God, powers of 
grace, and powers of nature. 

Spiritual fellowship comes out especially in the 
spiritual church; even as separate substances, 
each with its own density and gravity, its own 
cohesion and elasticity, are joined into one by 
chemical action, so persons combine in a church. 
The child wants other children. The child of 
God wants other children of God. Christians go 
like waters that come down from the valleys, 
stream after stream, then coalesce and move on 
together. The people of God become one in toils 
and enterprises, in cares and trials, in defeats and 
victories. They communicate to one another and 
receive from one another. 

Immediately the first disciples met daily with 
one accord; they became very much to one an- 
other. They even went so far that those who 
had means divided with those who had no means. 
There was a daily breaking of bread together ; the 
dream of brotherhood to its uttermost, short like 
a dream, but for a little while real; a true family. 
And these affectionate disciples had been persons 
diverse and antagonistic to a degree; had be- 
longed to opposing sets—Jews and *Gentiles, 
Greeks and barbarians, masters and servants; 
classes hating one another, despising one another. 
Now there were no more dislikes, irritations, en- 
mities; but instead there was a fellowship em- 


218 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


phatic and conspicuous; a closely cohering band; 
together in prayers and holy praises; together in 
a common confession of sin and testimony of sal- 
vation; together in the sacred meal in remem- 
brance of Christ; together in all service of their 
departed and yet present Lord; a people distinct, 
defined, and closely acting; a people realizing 
gloriously the communion of the saints. 

I turn to the nature of this communion of the 
saints. I wish I could picture gospel fellowship ; 
could unfold its full meaning so that it should 
take hold of us all, and we labor one by one to 
create the great and blessed reality. 

The planetary system symbolizes this fellow- 
ship. Each planet moves in its own orbit, but 
along with other planets in their orbits. Each 
planet swings round the sun, each satellite round 
its planet; all under control, all influenced by 
others, yet moving in harmony; planet swaying 
planet, satellite, satellite; the primitive curves 
losing their simplicity ; a vibration through and 
through; all weighed and placed and poised; all 
delicately adjusted, and the whole evenly bal- 
anced. The forest also brings its symbol. We 
enter the woods; the boughs intertwine, the roots 
interlace, the tall trees are interlocked—a squirrel 
can run through their tops. Now these are re- 
mote and inferior kinds of fellowship, they are its 
distant phenomena. 


FELLOWSHIP WITH OTHERS 216) 


But material combinations are dim and pale 
presentations of what Imean. I turn to ordinary 
social unions. There are companionships which 
center about pursuits of pleasure or work or 
study ; choice and desirable they often are, lead- 
ing to permanent friendships. Comrades in war 
never forget each other. In such companion- 
ships we have illustration of the heavenly com- 
panionship. 

We see a bright home; the days and months 
go by; there is a ceaseless living together under 
the same roof, a sitting together at the same 
table, unbroken common talk, a genial regard, the 
bond of acommon affection. This family fellow- 
ship is full of the significance of Christian fellow- 
ship. We read of “the household of faith,” of 
“the family of the redeemed.” God’s people are 
vitally one. 

We are a body of pilgrims going forward in a 
caravan, going up, if you choose, to the holy city, 
to present ourselves before the Lord; now travel- 
ing and now halting, now in the daylight and now 
in the dark, but ever together; all social grades, 
all differences of culture, all varieties of fortune, 
all ages, but one in brotherly love, one in a com- 
mon emotion of love and loyalty to Jehovah. 

There is general public worship. One and an- 
other and all enter the doors; the congregation 
gathered, now rises the voice of prayer and that 


220 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


of praise ; a common purpose actuates and a com- 
mon service unites. There are outward signs and 
words of a union inward, organic, sealed—sealed 
by the presence of the Holy Ghost: a sacred, an 
uplifting, a heavenly fellowship. There are the 
praises of the people. They are in concert, they 
make a chorus; they join in singing, whether near 
or far, their blended voices rising in the great 
congregation—scarcely one silent. The whole 
body joins as they do who stand in glory chant- 
ing “ Alleluia.” 

And now as to the character of this fellowship. 
The intercourse should be natural and easy ; 
be as the blossoming of the apple-tree, as the 
smiles of the affectionate one; be simple talking 
with God, confiding to him thoughts; be like the 
flower sending out perfume: like singing when 
one is happy, or crying when one is sad; some- 
thing eminently spontaneous; a lifting up of the 
soul to God. Praying to him is vastly different 
from praying to the dead, where we call and they 
answer not again. It belongs to no land of 
dreams, but to persons awake. It is living; is 
addressed to a living, listening Being. It is as if 
two were walking and talking; it is communion, 
as with a friend, an ever-fresh impulse and ex- 
pression of affection and desire: desire to com- 
municate with God, the finite with the Infinite. 
There is in prayer fervor and elevation, enlarge- 


FELLOWSHIP WITH OTHERS 22 


ment of heart, and corresponding utterance; a 
feeling that God is willing to hear and has power 
to answer; a moral certainty about this Being, 
that he can do no otherwise. 

The fellowship is pure—pure in purpose and 
practice; obeying every law of virtue; taking no 
improper liberties; free of all foulness; never 
sensual; genuinely Christian. It is orderly, those 
who enter it being modest and mannerly, keep- 
ing proper reserve, never overstepping decorum 
and propriety. It is thoughtful and reasonable, 
always sensible, never silly. It is continuous. 
Beloved ones fail to fill their places, move away ; 
streams and lakes and mountain-ranges intervene. 
Others pass over the dark river. But God ever 
gives some as our companions. 

This giving and receiving has degrees, accord- 
ing to the development of Christian qualities. 
With increase in the knowledge and grace of 
Christ there is increase in intercourse with his 
people. It was for this growth and perfection 
that Christ prayed. 

What shall I say of fellowship hereafter? Not 
only the person, but the various groups of persons 
shall flourish as not here. When the continents 
rose and stretched out east and west above the 
ocean level, a world of new vegetable and animal 
life appeared. So in the fullness of time shall 
the people of Christ rise unto the heavenly world. 


222 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


Go to New York; witness the grandeur of the 
buildings, the streets, the rivers, the sea; witness 
the multitude of the people, the vast and varied 
life, the wealth, the work, the skill. There js 
herein some type of the celestial city, the perfect 
society. Among the most precious and most 
beautiful disclosures of the Word of God js that 
picture here and there, now in Isaiah, now in 
Hebrews, now in Revelation, of the everlasting 
and beneficent kingdom of the divine people as 
a great city. John, when a convict in the mines 
of Patmos for the testimony of Jesus, had strange 
visions, which he wrote down. In the book of 
them we read: “ And I John saw the holy city, 
new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of 
heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her hus- 
band.”’ Here is the best image the writer had. 
The city was the only organic state he knew, 
and which then was. But though he takes only 
a city, he fills it with glory; gives gold for its 
pavements, pearls for its gates, layers of all bright 
jewels for the stones of its walls. It is one, for 
Christ and his redeemed are one. The very op- 
posite of deadness and darkness, its stones of life 
and light are playing with color and shining 
ceaselessly; a fair type of the fair people and 
their fair King. It is a city of the soul of every 
saint. It bodies forth the heavenly society with 
all its beauties, its uses and glories. It repre- 


FELLOWSHIP WITH OTHERS 225 


sents a people alive in themselves as never before, 
and alive also with the divine life; alight with the 
glory of God. One heavenly year there shall 
heal the heart of all its soreness. With the men 
and women and the children of the Lord, what 
the external appearances, surroundings, limits, 
we know not. All, perhaps, not after earthly 
fashion; if so, then after a heavenly fashion. In 
their universal and perpetual love, order and peace 
shall reign. Those of them alike shall gather, 
sympathetic and congenial. Thus is it there 
fundamentally: union with others; transfers of 
thought and affection; an infinite social HicweN© 
wonder the Bible uses words of exaltation, of 
glory and triumph. 

So, then, in the land of the future lies a great 
city continually in light, the silent gates open to 
east and west, south and north; and multitudes 
are within. No fraud or violence is there, but 
everlasting fellowship, a brotherhood ideal and 
real. | 

‘© O wondrous-fair Jerusalem, 
Shall I thy gates pass through, 


Thy jubilations surely join, 
Thy lordly splendors view?” 


CHAPTER XXVII. 
A (LER ETO PP RAY eRe 


ANOTHER spiritual characteristic of him who 
has the divine indwelling is prayerfulness. It is 
a ruling affection, a fundamental habit, a divine 
provision; hardly natural, rather something su- 
pernatural. Prayers rise from believers of “ every 
city and country”; from all the multitude of the 
people of God, toiling or suffering, uplifted or | 
downcast. 

Our prayers run parallel with our experiences. 
There are the prayers of the poor, the widowed, 
the needy, the stranger; the prayers of the sick 
and the afflicted. There are prayers for mercy 
and succor, for healing, restoration, and aid, in 
all being and ministering; prayers for all sorts of 
things. 

In prayer, adoration is expressed. Adoration 
implies perception of the perfections of God; im- 
plies the feelings of reverence and awe which 
these perfections awaken; implies, also, the ex- 


pression of such perception and such feelings. In 
224 


A LIFE OF PRAYER 225 


other words, adoration is the perception that is 
his who with strong imagination and acute sensi- 
bility views the ocean in its grandeur, or the sun 
in its splendor, or a storm in its might. There is 
a sense of the Infinite, and at the same time a 
feeling of awe; and, in the view of God, often a 
feeling of joy—joy as in the full, warm, genial 
sunlight; joy as in beholding beauty in its high- 
est forms, some glorious picture or great cathe- 
dral; joy as in listening to some grand piece of 
music. One beholds with angels and the just, and 
the lowliest perceive with the highest, man with 
cherubim and seraphim, the infinite God. It 1s 
felt that in this view of God there is not only that 
which is partially seen, but also that which can- 
not be seen; not alone that which is immeasured, 
but that which cannot be measured; that form 
and glory some of which is found and some of 
which is past finding out. There is a sense of the 
divine energy and majesty so great as strictly to 
be inconceivable and unutterable, as surpassing the 
human powers of thought, feeling, or expression. 
It is on account of God being what he is, and 
the soul being what it is, that adoration exists, 
that “it is becoming and right, proper and due,” 
for every creature of intelligence to adore God; 
for man and the spirits of the just and all holy 
angels; for every Christian soul, all fathers and 
brethren, all churches and holy assemblies, 


226 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


In prayer, praise is expressed. The heart rises 
heavenward to the Giver; praises him for the gifts 
of creation, the gifts of provision; and that his ears 
are ever open to all the cries and all the cares, 

In prayer, penitence is expressed; sadness for 
wrong done. The gloomy feeling of evil-doing is 
the longing that it had not been done. This peni- 
tence, with some more, with others less, is ex- 
pressed to him we worship, and whom we deeply 
love. It isa kind of natural, sad survival of dead 
evils; a kind of chain by which they still hold 
tous. At last the soul reaches the Saviour and 
tells the story of the wrong. He who comes to 
us from on high—the living Lord—is the true 
confessor of the soul. 

Then, too, in prayer are petition and interces- 
sion. He who is in the reception of the divine 
power petitions and intercedes, and acceptably ; 
because he has received Christ and is in favor 
with God; because, too, he is sincere, is really 
desirous, while yet submissive ; because, also, he 
trusts and works concerning the answer. He also 
prays here with power. He is an efficient means, 
a moral cause, leading God to do that which 
otherwise he could not have done. He produces 
measureably the results he desires, is a divinely 
appointed instrumentality to do it. 

There is motive to this asking, in the great 
divine perfections. Take the power that upholds, 


A LIFE OF PRAYER 227 


and turns planet and sun on their axes. We look 
at the complex and involved solar system, we see 
all circling as we cannot imagine, and we say that 
like an island in the ocean that system lies in 
God. And so we pray. Or take the wisdom that 
controls. We see atoms and molecules full of 
_ working-powers that as trained soldiers marshall 
at the word, gather and disperse, build up and 
tear down, and we say, ‘“‘ Behold him who is wise 
in all his ways and perfect in all his works.” 

There is motive to this asking, in the great 
divine relations. Take the divine condescension. 
What if God be infinite? If the sun chooses to 
shine on the earth shall the earth object? Vast be- 
yond conception, giving out light and heat beyond 
measure, it shines with the rest upon the earth. 
It could light and warm a million worlds. But 
volume, bulk, and greatest energy do not keep the 
sun from the earth or any little spot upon it. The 
sun while shining elsewhere infinitely is shining 
here and on every little thing. Size is no hin- 
drance, but is rather a help. Even so like that 
sun is God. Even though infinite, he hears our 
prayers. 

There is motive to this asking, in the great di- 
vine ministries where the Lord is with his own in 
ministries many, both outer and inner. He makes 
them to be radiant with celestial light and filled 
with celestial love. He gives them that rest in 


228 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


him which is for them as for one tired to sit on the 
shore or bathe in the sea. Even from the be- 
ginning until now is he thus especially minister- 
ing in the long line of the children of God, with 
each one in all his varying form, his changing 
self. He has revealed himself as a God to whom 
each one of us may find his way. Here every 
Christian, if he will dig for it, shall find his own 
water. God has enough and to spare with which 
to answer your true prayer, even as the sun has 
heat enough and light and power enough for 
long enough for every planet that rolls. 

When the believer reads of these perfections 
and close relations and tender dealings, the soul 
naturally grows devout; the head is bent, the 
heart worships. In the events, the exigencies, 
of life, the man is ever drawing upon the infinite, 
the boundless, the divine. His prayer is motive- 
power by which to help accomplish certain results ; 
a gift of God for daily use; one of the best of 
human helps; a true power in the world of man 
and of grace. You may say that he who has the 
divine indwelling ought to be so stable that he 
and all his is fixed; that he has no avoidable 
danger or dejection or distress or need; that he 
is like the islands and the continents in the sea. 
Instead of that he is unstable like the ocean: its 
surface rising and falling, ever in agitation. He 
is ever in unstable equilibrium. That is human 


A LIFE OF PRAYER 229 


nature, full and in want. With such a nature and 
such a God and such a power, one naturally says, 
and with all his soul, “ Hearken unto the voice of 
my cry, my King and my God: for unto thee will 
I pray.” He lives in prayer, works in prayer; uses 
it as a man uses his eyes or his arms. A deep 
instinct impels one to call upon God; a deep feel- 
ing that he is near. 

Then the very Spirit moves upon one to pray. 
He is so penetrated, so pervaded, he must pray ; 
he prays without ceasing. In the summer’s sun 
the corn fairly shoots upward; it is in its element, 
it takes on stature and length of leaf, and the field 
is a sea of green. As that lush, luxuriant life 
pushes outward and upward and into noble form, 
so pushes the Christian soul Godward. God’s 
people are naturally a praying people. We have 
yesterday’s prayers and the prayers of all the yes- 
terdays from the beginning. Many voices from 
the past testify to this great human experience. 
The St. Lawrence flows from the Great Lakes, 
moves amid and through the Thousand Islands, 
bears ships and steamers, and amid superb scenery 
goes on to the sea. So has flowed on the prayer 
of the church. The tides rise and fall, flow and 
ebb; they never cease, and will roll while the 
earth rolls. So the Christian prays without ceas- 
ing; so the church. She has an eternal passion of 
prayer. Nature and grace both impel her. As 


230 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


the earth is ever putting forth the grass, the herb, 
the tree, so the Christian is ever praying. It is 
an appointed movement that goes on in one, in 
all. The great history of spiritual life is in part 
a history of prayer; from Abraham to the apos- 
tles, from the beginning to the end of spiritual 
world-history. 

Then with the divine indwelling you cannot 
but enter into the divine purposes, come under 
the divine impulses, and long and pray for God 
to exercise his great creative, his great remedial 
forces. The order is God’s mind and _ intent, 
then the believer’s mind and intent; God and 
he fit together, as when the great wheel goes 
the little wheel goes. He out from whom came 
the very earth itself, from him comes prayer. 
His thoughts come out in the human thoughts, 
his desires in the human desires. He moves upon 
the praying soul, that it should pray for this or 
that. The desire of God develops itself in the 
prayer; the desire for a particular thing to take 
place. As the plant is nourished by the earth 
and the air, grows, puts forth new branches, and 
accomplishes its end, so praying is nourished of 
God. Here we have the effectual, the inwrought 
prayer of the righteous man. Ever is the Spirit 
making intercession in and through the saints. 

Moreover, “God who worketh in us” helps 
prayer ; is ever teaching the matter and helping in 


A LIFE OF PRAYER 231 


the manner of prayer; ever giving faith and desire 
and help in expression, both to those who can ex- 
press themselves and to those whose feelings will 
not articulate themselves, whose thoughts will not 
arrange themselves. ‘The Spirit also helpeth 
our infirmities, for we know not what we should 
pray for as we ought.” We have his ordinary 
and sometimes his extraordinary assistance. He 
enables us to be timely, to know every day what 
fompieay ior. tlechelps us be ‘appropriate; to 
perceive command or promise, example or other 
warrant. 

Further, God enables us to trust him as to.the 
time of answering. Prayer is sometimes like a 
buried seed, not to come up until after certain 
days—a shorter period with some seeds, a longer 
with others. Soin our prayers we are to remem- 
ber that very much is going on; that a great com- 
plication exists ; a system with many wheels, many 
powers; there may have to be waiting. Of the 
saints of old who prayed for the Messiah’s com- 
ing it is said, ‘‘ These all died in faith, not hav- 
ing received the promises.”’ You must feel that 
God is attentive, but may be impeded. Said the 
angel to the prophet: ‘‘ The vision is yet for an 
appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and 
not lie: though it tarry, wait for it.” The pray- 
ing way is a good way, a living way, a way of 
power, but not necessarily a quick way. 


232 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


God also enables us to trust him as to the way 
of answering. Often a thing we desire to have 
done in the church or in the land is done, but 
not in the way we expected. The disciples at 
Jerusalem prayed for the church’s extension and 
were answered by a persecution. 

Go then in the ministration of the Spirit, in 
“the anointing that abideth,” we have, in the 
actual work for us of our Redeemer, the spirit of 
prayer. In all the stretch and strain of life, the 
doing and enduring, we have this great privilege 
and possession. . 


CHAPTER Xo0v IIT: 
A LIFE OF PRAISE. 


THE Comforter who comes into his own, so 
fills them with his actual presence as to produce 
in them a constant spirit of praise; a spirit elo- 
quent of God, his love and presence; a spirit of 
reverence and gratitude for his goodness and 
mercy, of admiration and adoration for his great- 
fesceand) clory, © For-he is the secret of that 
strength and skill by which all food is raised, all 
clothing wrought, all houses are builded. He is 
as strong zz man and for him as ever; for sup- 
ply, for preservation and defense. Nor will they 
who are partakers of the Spirit forget the trea- 
sures not of earth, “ spiritual blessings in heavenly 
places ;” the life and light, guidance and liberty, 
the fellowship with others and with God, the joy 
of work, the awe of worship, and all the power of 
the ordinances. While we walk in the light of 
the sun we are walking in the light of God’s coun- 
tenance; in the light of him that fills the outdoor 
world and that world which is within. We strew 

233 


234 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


flowers before our Lord as our welcome in the 
glory of his coming, and, even as we welcome, 
his gracious Spirit comes forth in truth and 
largeness and helpfulness. When once comes the 
vision of our dependence and our receiving, and 
from whom, it touches us-and serves us; this giv- 
ing in its richness and tenderness, so full and free ; 
an ocean fullness of width and depth, a strength 
and an abiding like that of the everlasting moun- 
tains. As some great stream rolls through the 
desert and makes one long oasis, so through 
days and years and ages has flowed the stream 
of divine love; all along the banks has existed a 
land fertile and beautiful and full of life. As we 
see we sing “ Halleluiah! ”’ 

The spirit of praise is thus a habit, a phase of 
character, a tendency rather than an effort of 
will. It breathes through the whole soul, touches 
every thought, and tempers every emotion. One 
lives in it. The soul goes out in psalms and 
hymns of religion as did that of Asaph and that 
of David; and in this is a steady inspiration to 
love and to act divinely well. 

He who dwells continually in us, the Divine 
Spirit, he is the primary cause of praise; he is the 
secret energy that gives the soul to be alive with 
heavenly views and feelings, the whole heart to 
be cheered and stirred and bursting out in praises, 
as do the birds in song. He who is ever with his 


A LIFE OF PRAISE 235 


own has in his grace and presence given from the 
clear heaven of gladness this soul to see and sing. 
Yes, only in the fire sent down from above do our 
hearts arise in rapture and acclaim. 

The secondary cause of this divine life is the 
heart. In the creeds and theologies we have the 
thoughts of the church, but in the hymns and the 
praises we have her heart; her temper and her 
tenderness, her love and her loyalty, her sweetest 
affections and noblest aspirations. Praise comes 
out of the common and the rarer experiences; it 
strikes all the tender and all the triumphant 
chords. It comes out of the faith-element, the 
hope-element, the love-element. It is love's 
message to the skies; the descending gift is re- 
turned in ascending praise. Even as God made 
the universe because of his heart rather than of 
his thought, so the Christian makes his world of 
praise from his heart. In his everlasting health 
and strength he feels like singing. 

Praise expresses itself in music: no language 
so varied and subtle, so fitted for feeling, so 
spiritual. Only that language of tones can truly 
speak the glorious and wonderful feelings born 
of God. The Giver of all gifts gave music to be 
most from faith and holy love and hope, and all 
the experiences of the soul in God. As the bud 
bursts into the sudden beauty of the flower, so 
the heart breaks into the praise of God’s eternal 


236 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


song. The glow of feeling is followed by the 
glory of sound. Moved in the vision, the heart 
breaks out in the sweetest songs and hallowed 
psalms. It was so with Miriam and Israel; so 
with Deborah and Israel; so with David and 
Israel when the-ark came to Jerusalem; so with 
Solomon and Israel when the temple was ded- 
icated. It was so with the multitude that broke 
out into the hosannas before our Lord in his 
coming to Jerusalem. When Nature would ex- 
press her feelings to her Maker the birds awake 
one after another, and, opening their little throats, 
fill the world with song. So when God’s people 
would express especially their awe and admira- 
tion and gratitude, they sing. It expresses a 
certain exalted form of Christian feeling; is the 
peculiar and perfect glory of worship; is as flower 
is to stalk—its perfectness ; is the spirit of worship 
at its height. They in the temple hearkened and 
called, back and forth, in song and response. The 
free heart in monastery and convent, in conven- 
ticle and cathedral, has ever thus ascended. And 
in the fellowship of their glory is every church 
to-day. 

Praise in its character is first an infinite lan- 
guage; it is the soul’s communion with the Eter- 
nal Spirit. He whom we magnify is infinite in glory, 
in majesty, and blessedness, and in praise our vi- 
sion and joy of him are infinite—it is the joy of the 


A LIFE OF PRAISE 237 


full, warm, and genial sunlight. One bursts all 
bonds of expression, frees himself from all limita- 
tion of words or phrases, and finds incomplete the 
highest forms in painting or sculpture or any art 
save music. Into this with all its spirit and fervor 
he throws himself; it is the main path by which 
his spirit has immediate and direct access to the 
Divine Spirit, the directed and most universal way. 
So is it when one its full of hope, of love, of en- 
thusiasm, of the idea of duty. So is it when one 
beholds and loves with angels and the just, and 
the lowliest receive with the highest, man with 
cherubim and seraphim, the infinite God. But 
praise is infinite because the imagination which 
helps it is infinite, and images not alone that which 
is only partially seen, but also that which cannot 
be seen; not alone that which is immeasured, but 
that which cannot be measured; that form and 
glory some of which is found and some of which 
is past finding out. 

Praise is enduring; is deep, steady, and per- 
petual ; is part of the eternal life. One shall have 
done with care, with pain, with prayer, but never 
with praise. One shall have done with penitence 
and with patience, done with watching and with 
worrying, but never with glorifying. 


“Our days of praise shall ne’er be past, 
While life and thought and being last, 
And immortality endures.” 


238 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


Praise is of use. Ina world of disappointment 
it purifies the feelings and changes them into 
heavenly sympathies; it makes to ring the joy- 
bells, and the silver trumpets to blow. It creates 
soothing as in Saul, chases away trouble, lifts the 
heart out of itself and to God. _ It creates inspira- 
tion as with Elisha, and makes one happy and free 
asa bird. The angel takes us out of prison as 
Peter of old, and leads us, if we will, into the 
city. Weare glad and need expression, and so 
we praise; or we are sad and need solace, and 
so we praise. Many a struggling Christian has 
sung himself into cheer; many a Christian sol- 
dier, at the sound of the singing, has sprung up 
from the earth with the light of heaven in his 
face; many a weakening band has started up in 
goodly struggle to a greater effort, a better utter- 
ance; to a courage anda hope other than before. 
If we abide in this heavenly spirit, this blessed 
habit and exercise, it shall draw us toward truth 
and beauty and goodness. Many are its refining 
and elevating ministries; in many a way is the 
spirit of praise a spirit of grace; in many a way 
an herb of healing for the sickness of this world’s 
sin. Like a wind from heaven the spirit comes, 
and it refreshes us. 

We come now to those who praise. In the 
reception of this heavenly spirit, in the power of 
its manifestation, very nature is called on to praise, 


Gehl ORV RAISE 239 


as praise God it does. All this everlasting mak- 
ing of things shows forth his power and wisdom 
and goodness. Field, wood, and roadside, all the 
beauties of earth and all the splendors of heaven, 
praise him. Psalm and song call upon sun, moon, 
and stars to praise him: “‘ Praise the Lord from 
the earth, ye dragons, and all deeps: fire, and 
hail; snow, and vapor; stormy wind fulfilling his 
word.” 

Then, too, man’s works are called upon to 
praise; praise God they do: ores of the mine; 
‘products of every soil; the merchandise coming 
along all our ways and filling all our homes—all 
do magnify him. 

Then to the soul illumined and transformed, the 
very means of grace seem to praise, as in a way 
they do. The Lord’s day praises, in joyful speech 
of resurrection life. Said an old church father: 
“On this day we meet, and in praise we are full of 
the resurrection; full of the good tidings of great 
joy toall people. We are jubilant because of the 
universal jubilee.” It is the hush of the twilight 
morn of the resurrection day. The Lord’s Sup- 
per praises; it celebrates a mighty passion, but is 
itself an everlasting festival, a thanksgiving, a 
eucharist, creating a grateful sense of grace re- 
ceived. All the communion of the saints here 
magnifies the Lord. 

Then, also, those in the divine image directly 


240 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


praise. Innocent men in Eden within the garden 
gates, and the whole world a wilderness without, 
must have had heart and happiness in the sweet 
work of praise. But they who bear the seal of 
the King in the full possession of the Spirit do 
directly praise. Redeemed man, with favors many 
and endless, exclaims with David, “ I will bless the 
Lord at all times: his praise shall continually be 
in my mouth.” 

God must have an exceeding appreciation of 
praise, he has so filled heaven with its spirit. 


There is the praise of angels—jubilant in song, 


as they minister to nature, to man, and to God. 
In the vision of the beginning we are told that 
when God laid the foundations “the morning 
stars sang together, and all the sons of God 
shouted for joy.” In the vision of Isaiah they 
sing, those cherubim and seraphim, part over 
against part. In the vision of the nativity we are 
told of “a multitude of the heavenly host praising 
God.” In the vision of the future they sing, the 
angels and the just. Those beyond hard life, 
beyond the stain of sin, the deceit of Satan, the 
winds and waves of trouble, and in eternal glory, 
“Let them praise the name of the Lord.”’ Those 
countless persons do with love and thankfulness 
join the angel choirs, and all unite in the new 
song. They do each in his own inheritance, and 
all together in supreme majesty, praise God. 


) 
; 


A LIFE OF PRAISE 241 


John saw and heard. There was the voice of 
the multitude of the people, and of the great 
thunders rolling and rising—a universal an- 
them: ‘“ Halleluiah: for the Lord God omnipo- 
tent reigneth.” 

Thus passing in praise through the scenes of 
earth, we shall at last reach to sing 


‘‘ That undisturbed song of pure content 
Aye sung before the sapphire-colored throne 
To him that sits thereon, 

With saintly shout and solemn jubilee, 
Where the bright seraphim, in burning row 
Their loud uplifted trumpets blow ; 
And the cherubic host, in thousand choirs, 
Touch their immortal harps of golden wires ; 
With those just spirits that wear victorious palms, 
Hymns devout and holy psalms, 

Singing everlastingly.” 


CHAPTER XXIX. 
CHRISTIAN COURAGE. 


THE timid person shrinks and clings and waits : 
he has no spirit. But fear should at once and 
forever be banished from every Christian heart; 
for fear magnifies difficulties; it does not take 
sufficient account of helps; it makes visionary 
obstacles; it tends to failure. 

Courage is the taking a clear, decisive, marked 
stand; is the resolute facing of difficulties; is 
the facing people, their thoughts, their remarks, 
their prejudices, their Opposing interests, their 
reproaches, their false accusations, their persecu- 
tion. Courage is the determination to face the 
evil in person, church, or party or community ; 
to face the weakness, the difficulty, the distress, 
the evil state or circumstance of the case. It is 
the opposite of distrust and hesitancy and misgiv- 
ing. And, indeed, the difficulties are in part the 
making of us in calling out our graces. Fancy 
the mountains leveled, the hills no more; not a 

242 


CHRISTIAN COURAGE 243 


rise, not a declivity, not a dashing stream, but an 
everlasting plain with its narrow outlook. 

Courage has no necessary connection with 
vehemence or with rudeness; it is far from be- 
ing harsh or being censorious. One feels for 
persons as well as for the truth and the cause, 
hence one spares as much as possible those whom 
he opposes. Paul’s boldness in rebuking the 
Galatian and Corinthian Christians was accom- 
panied with tenderness. He said, ‘Am I then 
become your enemy, because I tell you the 
truth’? © 

Courage is natural to the gracious person. It 
is of the nature of an energy to make itself mani- 
fest. As heat or light or gravity asserts itself, so 
it is of the nature of a good man to assert him- 
self; not to hesitate in accomplishing that for 
which he lives. So to speak, the magnetic needle 
has the courage of its properties; so the Chris- 
tian has the courage of his convictions. The 
thunder-cloud moves with its flashes and explo- 
sions; the stream moves in its currents, rapid or 
slow ; so in accordance with his own nature moves 
the Christian boldly on. The flower ever exhales, 
ever sends its pollen-grains out upon the wind; 
so the Christian is ever active. It is only when 
he has little vigor that he has little courage; little 
force to stand or work or war, that he has little 
courage. 


244 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


When you learn that plants and trees take in 
their moisture at their roots, then pump it up 
through many wells, raising it in the tall tree to 
the very top, you have an idea of forces at work 
to do this thing. So there are forces that support 
a man’s courage; that raise it higher; that carry 
it as far as needed. 

The graces within the Christian tend to make 
him bold. Faith gives him boldness. Certain 
blessed spiritual facts are perceived with a clear- 
ness, with an evidence of their reality, and to an 
extent that revives us. They are appreciated and 
appropriated. When our eyes open as did those 
of the prophet’s servant, and we see the chariots 
of God ranged around us, we take heart. Seeing 
the divine mind and will in certain persons or 
places, gathering thus what God can and may do 
where you are, you face your own work with 
more spirit. Sometimes in a spell of dry dead 
heat there comes a motion in the grass of the 
meadows and the grain of the field. The wind 
has risen and blows; the spirits revive, and in the 
waving of the trees the courage returns. Menare 
no more morally fearful, afraid of work. All this 
floats off like wreckage from a plunging, rising, 
advancing ship. So a revival of religion else- 
where that you witness gives you more hope, 
more courage, in your own field. 

The general act of trust, of self-surrender to 


CHRISTIAN COURAGE 245 


God in what you are and along with what you 
undertake, inspires you; the giving up of pride, 
temper, ambition, and the putting yourself en- 
tirely at the divine disposal. In this general 
trusting you go forward boldly to do that which 
is set before you to do. A bright light shines 
upon you—the light of guidance. Feeling that 
God will fulfil his promises, you go on according 
to your call, much as the clouds go sailing the 
blue sky, or the stream goes rushing through the 
rocky gorge, or the crickets chirp, or the birds sing. 

Said Paul: ‘We having the same spirit of 
faith, according as it is written, I believed, and 
therefore have I spoken.” The Apostle John 
rings out: “ This is the victory that overcometh 
the world, even our faith.” It gives the cheer, 
the patience, the perseverance, the energy to 
continue the conflict. It is said of the saints in 
glory, they overcame by the blood of the Lamb. 
“He that believeth”? can face and fight “the 
wicked one” whenever or in whatever guise he 
comes. Faith gave Noah the courage to build 
his ark in the face of a gainsaying world; gave 
Abraham the courage to leave the city for the 
wilderness in the face of a criticizing community. 
In the eleventh chapter of Hebrews see what faith 
has done for courage. See what it did for Moses 
and Joshua, for Gideon and Barak, for David also, 
and for the prophets, 


246 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


Another grace needed is love. Out of love the 
shrinking woman, the timid mother, has courage. 
Out of love Christ’s people have died for him. 
The heart that is light with love is brave to face 
all foes. Fervid, glowing, enthusiastic Christians, 
in their love forthe cause and the people, are apt 
to be very boid in their speaking and undertak- 
ing. Paul was very bold in his great tenderness 
toward his countrymen, evil-minded and inimical 
as they were, furious devotees, revengeful, and 
hunting him as they did. 

Another grace needed is hope. Expect to ac- 
complish something and you attempt it. Hope 
tends to assurance, to action. Look with Joshua 
of old for coming conquests and become bold 
yourself for enterprises. It is as in the spring: 
we look upon the starting grass, the swelling 
buds, the early flowers, the sunny fields. We 
feel that the flowers of all the woods and meadows 
are rising in their season; that the leaves of all 
the trees are coming out. We behold the whole 
world’s new life; we catch on; we become ani- 
mated, active, bold. 

Another source of courage is the joy of the- 
Lord. When one reaches this stage he will de- 
clare his testimony and go upon his service. The 
spirit of halleluiah has nothing for its equal to 
drive away bugbears and all other objects of fear ; 
to give confidence in your cause and contempt of 


CHRISTIAN COURAGE 247 


yourenemies. Nothing shall deter you. Joy has 
a wonderful power to remove nervousness and 
fearfulness. 

Again, a part of the conditioning of courage is 
in those about us—courageous companions. Con- 
tact with nature is to some restful and helpful; 
contact with others is to some restful and help- 
ful. We get rid of depression and unfriendliness. 
One’s own experience is good, but that of two is 
better, and that of a larger number is better still. 
It does us good; it revives us. The counsel, the 
sympathy, the testimony, the manifestation of the 
Holy Ghost, are inspiring. You depend some- 
what on the sympathy of others, upon compa- 
nionship ; you want others with you. Ifa soldier’s 
company refuse to advance he will be apt to re- 
fuse. If others refuse to prosecute a work—get 
discouraged—you get discouraged. The planets 
of heaven, as they rush forward in their appointed 
ways, seem to need one another to speed, to bal- 
ance, to retard them in their wheeling. So in 
grace the action of those around one is especially 
influential. He is somewhat as others are. If 
the tide is low he is low; if high he is high. He 
has courage to undertake things if he have men 
of courage about him, ready to go in with him. 

But I turn to the divine source of Christian 
courage. If we receive the Holy Spirit, if we 
have the inbreathing of God, can we be other than 


248 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


men of courage? This boldness is not merely a 
matter of natural positiveness or force or fearless- 
ness, or a matter of authority in parent, teacher, 
or preacher; it is in much the coming of the Son 
of God. When you see it, God is nigh. Even 
the apostles forsook Christ at his arrest, but they 
confessed him after their baptism. Boldness is a 
characteristic of him who has been with Jesus. 
So the Jewish sanhedrim once testified. 

You cannot make a train of cars traverse from 
one direction across the landscape to the opposite 
direction—buildings, trees, the very ground itself 
left behind—without steam; you cannot, what- 
ever your machinery or however good your road- 
bed. The living, personal God in the depths of 
the soul is ever effectually working the power to 
face and bear up against the evil that might be 
feared. Like the sun that gives heat to the earth 
and warms up every form of matter, and nobody 
can keep cold under its rays, so God kindles fire 
within the heart. The clouds need the wind or 
they will not go. They need the moisture or 
they will not form; need air and water, or the 
clouds will not grow and join and draw out in 
lines or roll up in piles or descend in showers. 
You cannot whirl the earth in its awful circle 
through space without gravitation; so you can- 
not have courage without the divine indwelling. 
The church at Jerusalem prayed, saying, “‘ Grant 


Se ee ee 


CHRISTIAN COURAGE 249 


unto thy servants, that with all boldness they may 
speak thy Word.” Let God give the boldness ; 
let it come at his bidding, from hisimpulse. Even 
the sun sends forth its light and heat at his bid- 
ding and from his impulse. Let God have you 
in his direct, positive control, and he will endow 
you withcourage. He puts himself forth through 
us; gives us to see that which gives us courage ; 
gives us that entire self-abandonment which con- 
duces to courage. He animates us with his own 
views, his own principles, his own feelings. He 
who is as strong as frost or fire is our strength. 
We are backed by his everlasting force. 

“ Striving,” said Paul, “‘ according to his work- 
ing, which worketh in me mightily.” One mark 
of him the living God, who gives us of his life, 
is that he gives us courage in action, fortitude 
in passion; is that he puts new spirit into us. 
We face with more heart our dull and mechanical 
routine with all its weary round. We face with 
more nerve our infirmities and indiscretions, our 
difficulties and misfortunes. God is inspiring, 
suggesting. With means and without means he 
works, that his life flows in our veins, that Christ 
be bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh, and 
that we be “ filled with all the fullness of God.” 
We are uplifted and have courage, fortitude. 
The flowers are found in the woods, the leaves 
have come out, the birds are singing in the trees, 


250 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


and all is life. No wonder we have spirit. As 
God is in nature personally, powerfully, con- 
structing and preserving, so he is with us and 
about us and in all that concerns us. There 
need be no cowardice. 

We now find. how to get a person out of cow- 
ardice. Take him to the Lord, to enlist him, to 
engage him; to call out his faith, his love. So 
shall he receive manhood. The appropriation and 
assimilation of Christ must lead out of cowardice. 
Christ central and fundamental in you must give 
courage. Now all the windows are open toward 
the east and the morning sun shines in. The heart 
moves like a river, and the feelings chase one 
another like the waves of the sea. Or, what is 
the same thing, take the cowardly one to the 
Bible. As the apple-tree receives through its 
roots from the earth and through its leaves from 
the air that which, turned to juice, feeds trunk 
and branch, leaf and fruit, so the soul receives 
from the Word of God that which gives bottom 
and pluck. The Word enters and becomes nerve 
and blood and fiber. The motives to courage, its 
powers, are strengthened. Here again is it true, 
“Man shall not live by bread alone, but by 
every word that proceedeth out of the mouth 
of God.” 

Out of the unseen universe there may come 
everything to make us brave. God can move 


CHRISTIAN COURAGE 251 


the various energies of man, the various energies 
of grace, to make us brave. Christ can break 
the chains of fear whoever are our foes. He in 
whom his perfect work is done will be strong and 
of good courage. When one is actuated by the 
Spirit, is under his moving power, that one has 
resolution not to go back and has courage to go 
forward. Indeed, he has an. inherent force, an 
energy of motion, a directness of aim, something 
like that of the rifle-ball. How Nathan faced 
David; Amos faced Jeroboam; the nameless 
prophet faced the king beside the altar of Bethel; 
Elijah braved Ahab; Zachariah braved King 
Joash; Jeremiah braved the princes of Judah! 
A prophet ever rose up with a heart equal to 
the crisis; courage to rebuke sin, courage to call 
for righteousness, courage to lift up a standard. 


CHAPTER XxX. 
CHRISTIAN UTTERANCE. 


CHRIST was sent and his people are sent; 
Christ communicated and his people communi- 
cate; Christ was a prophet and every disciple is 
a prophet; he could interpret to others and his 
followers can. His people are a manifesting 
people; they unfold spiritual things. That new 
people who at Pentecost were baptized must bear 
witness ; and they did, in psalms and prophecies 
and tongues. Christian witnessing holds a prom- 
inent place in redeeming work. They who are 
God’s children and partakers of the Holy Ghost 
generally receive of the power to speak. 

The psalmists make mention of utterances and 
testimonies and oracles and speeches. The writers 
of the New Testament speak of revelations of 
God. Paul desires prayer that utterance may be 
given him, that he may speak boldly. John in 
his Gospel, his Epistles, his Book of Revelation, 
makes much of a fact he got from his Lord, and 


that fact is witnessing: a very manifest fact in 
Zn 


CHRISTIAN UTTERANCE 253 


the history of the Christian religion ; a very mani- 
fest element of Christian life—witnessing for Ged. 
John but spoke for the whole body of the early 
disciples when he said, “‘ We speak that we do 
know, and testify that we have seen.” We read 
that “the morning stars sang together, and all 
the sons of God shouted for joy.” The swing- 
ing, lighted stars in their splendor are singing of 
their Creator. The sons of God are not silent, 
but speaking. The Bible says, “‘The city was 


) 


pure gold, like unto clear glass;” something 
shining, something manifest. The church may 
be here symbolized as revealing, making to shine 
forth, its great truths. 

You expect a flower-bed to have flowers ; plenty 
of them, and pretty flowers, too; and as the sea- 
son goes by you expect other flowers. All 
through the summer shall flowers bloom there in 
their golden colors, stand still in the sun or dance 
in the wind. So the spiritual person is ever ex- 
pressing Christ, and with the rest by his words. 
He is like a piano, the business of which is to 
vibrate in its stretched strings and ever to give 
out music of some kind, whoever strikes it; ever 
sounding on soft and beautiful. Shall a man be 
saved and not tell of it? He who feels himself 
redeemed is earnest to make his Redeemer known. 
His life, springing from God, fed by nature and 
grace, flows out in speech. The singer must 


254 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


sing, the painter paint. The believer speaks, in 
his way, with his gift; speaks of his new thought 
and feeling; he enters on an evangel, a preaching 
of the gospel. 

The ointment in a man’s right hand will bewray 
itself. There are things to express of Christ able 
to save, strong and full and fit; of Christ who 
was once upon earth and is now in heaven; the 
feeling of him as the way, the truth, and the life ; 
the reaching somewhat to his merits and value, 
to his meaning and measure for us. He, the 
brilliant star of the merely natural mind, has be- 
come the very sun of the spiritual mind. One 
wills to be heard; he is not going to sit by in si- 
lence; he speaks out. Eager, stirred by the 
Holy Ghost, he must break forth and proclaim 
aloud the living truths and feelings which move 
him. Then his experience of religion finds ut- 
terance ; it is human nature for him who is happy 
to look about for some one to talk to. Said a 
singer: “ Come and hear, all ye that fear God, and 
I will declare what he hath done for my soul,” 
Paul was wont to testify what great things the 
Lord had done for him. Who could think of John 
as not speaking out? The mountains wait through 
the night until their summits are tipped with gold, 
but believers show the light evermore. 

God has unloosened the tongue of the real Chris- 
tian; has widened his speaking-range; has made 


CHRISTIAN UTTERANCE 255 


him burn to tell the simple story of the quench- 
less love of God. Faith, hope, love, fervor, find 
utterance. Shall not the grass show its green 
and the flower its beauty? Shall not the little 
birds sing in the coming of the day? In con- 
genial conditions shall the seed burst and put 
forth: the root downward to darkness and mois- 
ture and firm earth, the shoot upward to air and 
sunlight ; that which was hidden shall come forth. 
So shall not the Christian speak, and ever speak, 
the truth he clearly sees? 

As the subterranean waters are continually 
coming to the surface by springs large and small, 
coming up everywhere as we sink wells, so the 
Christian is ever rising into gratulations and re- 
joicings. He exclaims, ‘‘ Bless the Lord, O my 
soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy 
name.” As along the way one goes whistling, 
so on his bright path the Christian goes with the 
speech of prayer and the speech of praise; his 
soul elate. With full heart and expanded spirit 
he ranges upward more and more. He speaks 
the glories of his sight and soul in praise until, 
attuned to the heavenly choir, he sings among 
the saved. 

The whole latter half of the Bible is full of the 
history of speaking and preaching. The old 
prophets were nothing if not speakers. Elijah 
thought Baal-worship wrong, and he denounced 


256 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


it. Jeremiah felt for the oppressed man-servant 
and maid-servant, and he spoke out against their 
oppressors. Amos heard of some who sold the 
righteous for silver and the needy for a pair of 
shoes, also of others who combined to force up 
the price of food and fuel; and he spoke right 
out. But the great idea seems to be the procla- 
mation of the presence of the Lord, the good 
news of the Promised One; the great calling vir- 
tually is, “Believe the gospel.” The prophets 
foretold the gospel; John the Baptist announced 
it; Jesus proclaimed it; the apostles carried it. 
Christ said, “Since the days of the Baptist the 
kingdom of heaven is preached.” The church, 
woman or man, timid or bold, in realizing Christ’s 
presence, not only shines it out in the face, but 
in discreet and wise ways speaks it out by the 
tongue. The church shall never change in this, 
that she is a preaching church. She loves to 
make her Saviour known. As when the prophet 
stood up to proclaim repentance unto Israel and 
forgiveness of sins, to bring good tidings; as 
when “in those days came John the Baptist, 
preaching in the wilderness of Judea, and say- 
ing, Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is 
at hand.”” Yet while certain services are per- 
formed better by certain persons, still all minis- 
try is to be abandoned by none; the early de- 
mocracy of the church is to be remembered. 


SO a eee 


ae) 


CHRISTIAN UTTERANCE 257 


All of the Lord’s people are prophets. As he 
manifested himself in speech, so is his disciple to 
do, as this or that interpretation is seen, this or 
that fact is realized, this or that application is 
suggested. 

Look at Christ the faithful witness; testify to 
what he knew: “I have declared thy name unto 


2) 


Mmysoretiren;s testify in” life,’in “character, in 
gentleness and pity, in yearning and prayer, in 
drawing men to God. How Christ affirmed, told 
his story! He was “the true and faithful wit- 
ness.” In his witnessing he lived, for his wit- 
nessing he died, and as a witness he rose again 
from the dead. It was as he told Pilate, Jesus 
came to bear witness to the truth. All lamps, 
all stars of night, the sun itself, and those appear- 
ances of old, are eclipsed by him who is the 
brightness of the Father’s glory and the express 
image of his person. Most impressive is he in 
his character, his teachings, his works. 

It is characteristic of this utterance that it 1s 
accompanied by the graces and helps of the 
Spirit ; accompanied by love, patience, and quiet- 
ness of manner. That infilling which moves one to 
speak is attended by liberty in speaking and yet » 
by a wisdom which directs how to speak. The 
speaker is not guilty of impertinence or of 
importunity. He adapts’ himself to time and 
place. Out of a living soul he speaks those 


258 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


thoughts and feelings which God approves; he 
speaks with understanding. He must know the 
Book, and know experience, and know the meth- 
ods, all to be competent. We are in a world 
where even to do Christ’s work we néed know- 
ledge and skill. The very bird has to learn 
to fly; the very quick-running children that so 
chase about in the school-yard had each to learn 
to walk. It is very important to know how to 
preach Christ properly. Such speech will reach 
the spiritual mind and touch the heart. It will 
have something—perhaps you cannot tell what 
—something which will make it effective. It 
sensibly brings the Lord’s presence. Let a live 
Christian, one truly taught and guided of God, 
speak to you, and the Holy Ghost will there be 
teaching you, helping you, with power. As the 
disciples going to Emmaus talked of Jesus, he 
himself drew near and joined himself to them. 
As they had been communicating to each other, 
he began communicating to them. Often as 
thus his disciples have talked has he joined 
them. 


CURbsUAMORe DOE 
CHRISTIAN SERVICE. 


We come now to that genuine activity called 
service: the ministry of the gospel; to bring back 
the wanderer, to interest the indifferent, to pro- 
claim by word and act to the lost the Saviour 
found. You set fire to the brush-heap on cleared 
land, and presently the whole is wrapped in 
flames; the kindlings, the chips, the dry brush, 
the sticks, the stumps—the whole becomes a 
glowing mass, crackling and roaring with a rising 
column of flame. Here is a vision of consecra- 
tion. Like this is the Christian service of some. 

Christian life is not inactive, merely receptive, 
like that of those shell-fish which adhere to rocks _ 
or shells, and never move, but simply receive. 
Christians are workers. As the natural sun rises 
to light and warm the earth and wake the whole 
to life, so the Sun of righteousness arises upon the 
Christian and awakens him to work. Filled with 
the divine indwelling, he becomes like the diamond 
in its light and the ruby in its flame; he becomes 

259 


260 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


like the cherubim and the seraphim, the shining 
ones and the loving ones. He is always and 
everywhere standing and doing for Christ’s name 
and cause. He is like a star alight from its point 
of rising, passing upward to its meridian, and then 
sweeping downward to its setting. The subjects 
of grace are preachers of grace. Learners of 
Christ are teachers of Christ. The Christian 
worker desires and designs; he dares and does ; 
he is eminently aggressive. He would work 
with Christ to destroy the works of the devil. 
He would face and fight evil everywhere and 
every time. He has a very chivalry and con- 
secration of service. He cannot sit while others 
sin or suffer. He is not like the frozen stream, 
but like the running stream. He is not numb 
with sitting, or slow with sullenness, or gloomy 
with exhaustion, or paralyzed with fear. He is 
active against bad habits and customs, evil prac- 
tices in trade, in politics. He serves in preven- 
tive and restrictive work, in reformatory and con- 
structive work. 

He who has that glorious manifestation, the 
Spirit’s actual presence, has an anointing for work. 
In the Old Testament times priests and kings were 
anointed with oil, as a symbol that the Holy 
Spirit commissioned and fitted them for distinct 
and special services. So John says to certain 
Christians, “Ye have an unction from the Holy 


CHRISTIAN SERVICE 261 


One;” and Jesus said to his disciples, “As my 
Father hath sent me, even so send I you.” The 
fishes are called to switn, and have fins; the birds 
are called to fly, and have wings. He who has 
provided abundantly, by structure and surround- 
ing, for fishes and birds has provided for Christian 
workers. As in nature the higher we ascend in 
life the more numerous and distinctly differ- 
entiated are the organs, so is it as in Christian 
life we rise to Christian influence and work. All 
nature is at command, all innocent human nature. 
All things are used for the Lord without preju- 
dice against any as worldly or vicious or heathen. 
Christian workers may use all that they are or 
have; all that can attract the eye, charm the ear, 
Om please =the heart; all beauty, all music, all 
friendly companionship. Singers may sing, talk- 
ers talk, business men do business, social people 
be sociable. 

He who has this mark of the living God, this 
impress, performs skilful service. He tends to 
be free from influences which impair the judg- 
ment, which give one to look through a colored 
glass, which disturb and impede justice, honor, and 
generosity. Then, too, he has spiritual impulses 
and directions. The bird of passage goes straight 
through the trackless air a thousand miles, not 
moved by sight or by hearing, flying in the si- 
lence on high straight over hills and mountains 


262 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


and extended plains, to the very tree of last year’s 
nest. So the Christian worker has instincts and 
guidance : is guided of Him who often guides the 
free spirits of his creatures. Ina sense and at 
times all the Lord’s people are commissioned 
prophets. They are told what to do and bidden 
do it, and in the doing receive oversight and 
counsel. 

He who has this superhuman quickening is 
powerful. The divine power creates human 
power. When God wanted to make certain rocks 
he set fire at work, and certain other rocks he set 
water at work. When he wanted to make gold 
and silver he veined and charged the ledges with 
the vapors of gold and silver. When he wanted 
to shape and smooth the earth and spread it with 
soil, he set the water and the ice at work. So 
when in the world he wants a work done, he 
chooses agencies sufficiently powerful to do it. 

What is power? Witness destructive power. 
On the sea-shore the winds toss the sands inland 
and turn fertile farms into barren wastes. There 
is all the war of sea and coast, the fury of attack, 
the stubbornness of resistance. Witness benef- 
icent power. See the great irrigating ditches of 
the West, that connect with some dam among the 
hills and bring life to a land which had neither 
grass nor flower nor fruit-tree, nor song of bird 
nor voice of man. All this is power. In the 


. Aa 26. ee, Pe Te 


CHRISTIAN SERVICE 263 


Christian every element of character is a power. 
Affection is of the royal manner, the manner to 
compel homage. The giving of self with all the 
heart touches another, is practical power. Joy is 
power—drawing, winning power. “ For the joy 
of the Lord is your strength.” Christians are 
witnesses, revelators, Bibles, stars in the Lord’s 
right hand—stars that never burn out or are ex- 
tinguished. They cannot hide themselves if they 
would; they would not if they could. Peter said 
to believers, “ Ye also, as lively stones, are built 
up a spiritual house.”’ Ye are not dull, dim, 
opaque, like ordinary stones, but ye are living 
stones. Impressed ourselves, we ought to be 
able to impress others. Light-receivers are light- 
givers. Heat creates heat. 

By all sorts of ways does the power go out. 
Seeds are carried by wind or by running water; 
by animals, by ships, or by wagons; or they fly 
over the country with their own sort of wings. 
Our thoughts go out by speech, now serious and 
now sportive; by our singing, our praying; by 
our very manner. Sometimes persons seem to 
be specially fitted. The right work needs to be 
done and in the right way. Sometimes a Chris- 
tian worker without more grace than common, 
without more general gift than common, has 
greater power than common, greater flow of 
thought, feeling, and words, or at least produces 


264 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


a greater effect ; for instance, reaches men’s heads 
and hearts much better than common. There is 
a moving like that of the angel who stirred the 
waters. 

He who has this great stretch and rise of being 
is powerful because he can draw upon Christ; 
upon him whose power, unwasted, full, and fresh, 
comes to us through Bible and sanctuary, through 
sermon and song and prayer, making us powers 
of the world to come, powers of the Holy Ghost, 
powers to save, sanctify, and comfort. Can the 
plant draw upon earth, air, and water, and 
the Christian not draw upon Christ and be spe- 
cially aided, guided, and guarded? As we use 
wind or water, electricity or steam, so may we 
use the power of God. A city utilizes a lake 
back among the hills, constructs waterworks, and 
has the water fully at command. So is it with 
the Christian worker. Moses was enabled of 
God to deliver Israel, Joshua to conquer the 
Promised Land; the judges were enabled to de- 
liver it. In like manner, psalmists and prophets 
were endowed. God said to Moses, “I will be 
with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt 
say.’’ Isaiah said, “The Lord God hath given 
me the tongue of the learned, that I should know 
how to speak a word in season to him that is 
weary.’ God said to Jeremiah, “ Behold, I have 
put my words in thy mouth.” God said to his 


a 


CHRISTIAN SERVICE 265 


ancient people, ‘‘ Ye are my witnesses.” Certain 
in the New Testament spake as the Spirit gave 
them utterance. Paul “spoke the words which 
the Holy Ghost gave.’”’ Peter and the other apos- 
tles ‘‘ preached the gospel with the Holy Ghost.” 
Jesus said, “The Father that dwelleth in me, he 
doeth the works.” And in turn Jesus qualified 
the seventy and the apostles. In the work of 
Peter and Stephen, of Philip and Paul, we have the 
evidence of a ministry of power. Peter preached 
to the conversion of five thousand. Paul prayed 
that the power of Christ might rest upon him. 
The disciples ‘‘ preached the gospel with the Holy 
Ghost sent down from heaven.” 

This inspired service is especially a happy ser- 
Wice weisnirec ol bondage: is; nota ‘trial, a-mere 
matter of duty, a heavy burden, a kind of slavery, 
something done without love. Nor is it so accom- 
panied with a sense of care, of responsibility, as to 
be a weariness. You doubt your fitness; you are 
troubled about your success. You fear the tool 
the Lord is using will break ; you feel your weak- 
ness. Nor is it so accompanied by a sense of the 
amount of work to be done as to be unpleasant. 
The servant has to do only that at which he is 
set. The workman in the factory has only his 
own work, his especial duties. He is called to 
do nothing more. He is not to try to attend to 
the work of the rest. He has his own place. Nor 


266 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


is the service so accompanied by after-thoughts as 
to be a burden. The work done is left with the 
Lord. Bitter reflection upon poor doing does not 
exist. 

Christian service is gladsome because surren- 
dered to the Lord; because in his keeping, his 
protecting, his guiding, his supporting. You lay 
every burden off, you cast every care away, you 
are delivered from all anxiety. “ Be careful for 
nothing.” The Christian works like the man who 
in the morning is told what to do, and in the even- 
ing drops his care with his tools. He has nothing 
of the worry which his employer has. 

Further, the service is gladsome because vig- 
orous and natural. If the shining sun in all its 
power and activity, in the rolling waves and 
bursting floods of flaming gas and molten metal, 
through its illimitable “ spaces of fire,’’ were con- 
scious of its shining only, without any regard to 
the effects, that would be a happy consciousness. 
The Bible says, “‘ He rejoiceth as a strong man to 
foneasidcee 
because of his strength and his speed, to go 
round the earth. So may the Christian rejoice 
in his strength and skill. 


referring in figure to his eagerness, 


Christian service gives gladness because you 
want to be in such service; you like it, you love 
it. The law of service is not from without, but 
is from within. Christ has gotten possession of 


ad 
a 


CHRISTIAN SERVICE 207 


you and you want to do his will: his service is a 
delight. 

Then, too, there is the character of the work. 
It is rescue work, redeeming work. One is a par- 
taker with God in his most tender and magnifi- 
cent works, a co-worker with Christ to make men 
glad. He is lifted up into his Lord and moves 
with his moving. He, like Christ, is to others a 
shadow in the heat. He, as Jesus did, throws 
himself into the life of others; to strengthen the 
struggling, to steady the staggering, to right the 
wronged. With a constant impulse and a perfect 
confidence, he forever lives for others. In this 
unlimited zeal he enters into his higher, his eternal 
life, and is forever filled with all the peace such 
self-surrender gives. 

So, also, the Christian worker is happy because 
of a peculiar presence of God with him. The 
trainer with approving nods follows his boat’s 
crew and sends across the waters his cheer, es- 
pecially when particularly good work is being 
done. Your friend is an athlete in a wrestle. 
You cheer him, as with laborious breath, clenched 
teeth, and locked limb he bends in that cramped 
and screwed and swaying couple. The college 
boys follow their racing crews with demonstra- 
tions of intense interest. So must Christ be 
pleased with Azs workers. 

Thus, then, the Lord’s people are in a sense an 


268 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


extension of the incarnation; are a means by 
which he is present; are instruments of his grace, 
revealing him, bringing him. From the summit 
of every ridge, along down every valley, a thou- 
sand streams—one between every two hills—are 
all moving into larger streams, and these into the 
mighty river, and all carrying earth and sand and 
worn-out vegetation to feed the great delta at the 
mouth. So do Christians together make a great 
river, conveying grace. Each is in a sense in- 
spired, and communicates of the Holy Ghost, 
communicates after the mind and way of Christ. 
One may have no adequate notion of whom he 
influences, or by what, or how far; but influence 
he does, used of God he is. Believers are like 
organ-reeds, which send each its own tone—sweet, 
clear, and musical; while the single melodies com- 
bine into a harmony in the air of heaven. Mean- 
while the player, with deft touch of feet and fin- 
gers, the whole body alert and engaged, follows 
the score. And now the great congregation, fol- 
lowing on, is awakened, enkindled, inspired. Yes, 
the believer is the heart and soul of divine truth 
on this earth; is the loftiest and yet lowliest rev- 
elation of God. The Christian calls and preaches 
and judges and makes manifest and serves, as 
nothing else does. 


CHAPTER, X2CXIT: 
CHRISTIAN SUCCESS. 


SUCCESS is not always at command, is not al- 
ways the direct result of labor, is not always the 
particular reward of the particular laborer. Suc- 
cess is affected by circumstances over which the 
worker has no control. The same person differs 
in different places, or at different times in the 
same place, as to the amount of his success. So, 
also, persons with equal ability, faithfulness, and 
apparently in circumstances equally favorable, 
may differ in the amount of success. 

Success is quite a matter of temperament, 
tastes, and faculties; quite a matter of powers 
and training, of position; and is in much far be- 
yond any ordinary person’s reach. A successful 
merchant, a successful manufacturer, a markedly 
successful physician, owe far the most to facts 
beyond personal control—facts of nature and - 
providence. The great lawyer and preacher and 
artist are creations more of nature than of them- 


selves. ‘‘ Promotion cometh neither from the 
269 


270 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


east, nor from the west, nor from the south. 
But God is the judge: he putteth down one, and 
setteth up another.” 

Success is not always visible success, marked, 
apparent success. Success is accomplishing the 
purpose for which you are sent. You may be 
successful in the general success. Your particu- 
lar place may be very far from where the partic- 
ularly successful blows are being struck. This 
may be illustrated in all sorts of work. Let the 
Manager manage. Leave it to him to give you 
your place. You are only responsible for a small 
share. Your duty is individual ; is to do an especial 
work and do it as well as you can, ‘‘ every man ac- 
cording to his several ability,” in the diversities 
of gifts and the differences of place. 

When the divine and the human go together, 
and the divine is allowed properly to influence 
the human, then man’s action is successful, accord- 
ing to the divine intent of success. The will and 
the work of the Lord are done. The thoughts 
and feelings, the purposes and activities of the 
man are according to a true nature, according 
to the divine thinking and desiring. The man 
works, but God works in and through him. The 
man is personal, individual, but he is also an 
organ, an instrument, of the Divine Spirit. Such 
a fact, such an experience, is possible. This is 
after the deliberate and orderly manner in which 


CHRISTIAN SUCCESS 2 


God everywhere causes things to grow, and 
shapes them as he will. This is the way they 
work in his. service, and successfully, who have 
the Holy Ghost within; all such, from the hum- 
ble people here below up to the higher and the 
highest goodly people above—those that reach 
even to the throne of heaven. 

One condition of success is the presentation of 
religious truth. We read of being renewed by 
knowledge. We read, “ Sanctify them through 
thy truth.” By bringing truth to bear, a very 
blasphemer may repent and glorify God; he who 
is naked and possessed may come to sit at the 
feet of Jesus, clothed, and in right mind. The 
truth prepares the way of the Lord: the presen- 
tation of the gospel, by character, by example, by 
personal action, by Christian manner. These 
things have weight; people are so made. Peace 
makes others feel their want of peace. Convic- 
tion, amid the fogs of guesses, doubts, and rea- 
sonings, begets conviction. Trust begets trust, 
hope begets hope. 

As the virgins went to meet the bridegroom 
with burning lamps, so it is ours to meet the 
Lord in knowing him, in perceiving that of all 
bright things he is the brightest, and of all best 
things he is the best. When he is so seen, his 
work, his life within, begins; we love and serve 
him. “And this is life eternal, that they might 


275 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, 
whom thou hast sent.” When there is no vision 
there is no voice, and so men are dumb in praise, 
in prayer, in testimony. Where there is nothing 
seen or felt or known there is nothing to talk 
about, there is no motive to work. 

Take testimony. The simple testimony of a 
God-fearing person may go home when an argu-_ 
ment would fail. Expression of peace, of con- 
fidence, has power sometimes. A proper wit- 
nessing may awaken a sleeping soul; may set an 
opposer to doubting; may be the means of con- 
version. 

Take enthusiasm: intellectually, its large ideas; 
emotionally, its warm, buoyant spirit; practically, 
its engagedness in Christian work. With it one 
feels bold and strong; he is fresh and enterprising. 
From this enthusiasm in another there come ideas 
into one’s own mind, impulses to one’s own soul, 
waves of emotion, communications from above. 

Still another condition of success is faith. In 
the case of the man with the withered arm, faith 
gave the power to come. In every divinely di- 
rected labor faith helps: faith in yourself, faith 
in your methods, faith in the promises. This 
very conviction, confidence, is an evidence of 
God’s presence; an evidence that the Spirit has 
begun to move somewhere; an evidence that the 
Lord is beginning to come in power. The farmer 


CHRISTIAN SUCCESS 273 


works his ground with faith in nature; so do you 
work with faith in grace—faith that certain agen- 
cies will reach certain results. We must feel our 
dependence upon God for success ; upon his provi- 
dence to help us, his keeping us from making that 
bad start which hampers all the way through, or 
taking that false step which trips us. The re- 
sponse to the command to work in redemption 
should be accompanied with faith in the help of 
the great Worker. Stephen was “ full of faith and 
of the Holy Ghost.’”’ He who makes effort with 
earnestness and wisdom, and is animated by faith, 
may be sure that he is working in the Spirit, and 
that in some way the divine favor will accom- 
pany his labors. Let him have faith, if he goes 
“preaching the gospel,’ communicating religious 
and moral truth, working along some line of be- 
nevolence to the poor, the sick, the distressed, the 
ignorant. Let him have hope in reasonable suc- 
cess, sooner or later, who is ready to work in the 
field to which God’s providence assigns him. He 
may be sure that he moves as he is moved by the 
Holy Ghost, just as truly as holy men of old “spake 
as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” 

The spirit of Christian love is an element of 
Christian success. Sympathy opens the heart to 
receive your message if possible. Loving seems 
to be quite essential to personal influence. 

Yet another condition of Christian success is 


274 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


patience: ‘“‘patient continuance in well doing.” 
Because the worker is but part of a combination 
of influences, waiting may be necessary. The 
righteous man is like a tree which bringeth forth 
its fruit in its season. We must wait in all our 
fruits for the season. So, then, success may be 
slow in coming, and patience is needed. The 
ocean shore has clay and gravel and hard rock, 
a compact barrier to withstand the ocean. But 
the loose and moving waters now creep into 
crevices, now work under layers, now plunge, 
beating, battering. They keep at this day and 
week and year. They remove great beds of 
earth and gravel, remove the soft sandstone, and 
even wear the granite. Who has not seen the 
vast debris on beaches covered with sand and 
gravel? It is all owing to the patient breaking © 
of the waves on beach, in rocky cave, on head- 
land; the running in of tides, the sweeping in of 
currents, the driving in of storms, beating the 
shore night and day, year by year. So do you 
take time into account. It undermines, loosens, 
and casts down; it untangles, it softens asperities, 
it lessens prejudices, it gives chance for better in- 
fluences. So we do well neither to sigh nor com- 
plain, but patiently to hold on. 

We are to let the Lord take his time. “It is 
good that a man should both hope and quietly 
wait for the salvation of the Lord.” ‘“‘ Behold, 


CHRISTIAN SUCCESS 275 


the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of 
the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he 
Peceiye tues early .and* latter rain, ~ *lhe:-crea,- 
tion of the world was slow. There were seem- 
ingly no rapid changes, no sudden transitions, no 
great catastrophes; each period seemed to pass 
slowly intothe next. So the movement upward of 
the solid crust of the earth here and there from 
the sea-bottom or from the shore is imperceptible, 
but change there is. The growth of the corn in 
the garden is imperceptible, but growth there is. 

A long effort may be followed by sudden re- 
sults. The great Reformation, though occasioned 
by Luther, was caused by forces which had been 
in operation a hundred years. The French Rev- 
olution was preparing for fifty years at least; but 
when it came it came with the suddenness and the 
power of fire. The destruction of slavery in the 
United States was preparing for forty years, but 
it came in four. Mr. Moffat labored long in the 
Kuruman valley in South Africa without a con- 
vert. But one spring, as suddenly as the gardens 
come up and grow in that sandy soil, did the whole 
tribe come out for Christ. In a few weeks he 
eathered in the fruits of thirteen years of labor. 
Similar was it with the laborers in the Society 
Islands of the South Pacific. 

But our success is dependent somewhat on 
spiritual wisdom. We are to work on God’s 


276 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


plan, under his direction. Indeed we must not 
go at certain works until reasonably sure of a 
call. It is right to cast out devils, but the seven 
sons of one Sceva, a Jew, tried it and failed. 
Sometimes we try to do that which God has not 
really called us-to do. We want to do it and 
yet we fail in it, and this because it is not God’s 
work for us. God said to Moses, and says to 
every worker of his, “ See thou make all things 
according to the pattern showed thee in the 
mount.’’ God will provide a field of labor, 
materials to work with, skill and courage for the 
labor. Much discouragement and failure in this 
world might have been avoided had men sought 
the divine guidance about all their work. They 
are to help God in his work rather than have 
God help them in their work with their way of 
doing it. Then, as the little honey-bee makes 
no mistake in finding his hive or making his cell, 
so they shall make no mistake. To crossaswamp 
needs considerable skill; so to sail a boat in rough 
water and weather. The success in doing these 
things is a proof of the skill. 

With these graces you use aright your instru- 
mentalities; and God’s grace, somewhere, at 
some time, and somehow, comes as the sap comes 
through the boughs and branches, swells the 
buds and pushes out the leaves, opens the flower 
and matures the fruit. With these graces the 


v 
4 


— 


CHRISTIAN SSOGCCESS 277 


Holy Spirit acts upon your instrumentalities, as 
wind or water, steam or electricity, act upon ma- 
chinery. The power bears on shaft, wheel, and 
belt, on auger and chisel, on screw and saw. The 
wheels, cranks, and pistons, the axles, planes, and 
pulleys, are now doing their work. Spiritual 
power comes to make, somewhere and to some 
extent, heart-experience, religious principle, moral 
practice. 

The Lord is the great author of success. He un- 
derstands best the ways and means and obstacles, 
and has the most power to affect these. He is 
like the water distilling from land and lake, river 
and ocean; rising in vapor to cool the air of sum- 
mer and warm that of winter; falling in rain to 
quicken soil and plant, or in snow to cover root 
and seed, grass and grain. He who energizes all 
forces and vitalizes all seeds, and who, separate 
from all, is yet in all that is, he gives substance 
and fiber, spirit and power, to every person, “‘ just 
so far and just so fast as it is possible for that per- 
son to receive.’ He is like the ocean, with the 
tides that beat and tumble over the reefs, that 
cross the bars and fill the bays, that run up the 
estuaries and the rivers; the great ocean, that in 
all its great fullness has enough and to spare to 
pour itself everywhere. The indwelling of the 
Spirit of the Lord so perfects and endows a man 
that he shall have the largest power and the 


278 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


largest freedom possible in every region of his 
life; that he shall be the least selfish and the most 
brotherly ; shall be the deeper, broader, truer 
man; shall have the richest and strongest nature 
possible. Such may be our great experience. 
He, the only One to whom we turn in discourage- 
ment, is the One to turn to forsuccess. He makes 
us to enter with more than common heart and zeal 
and wisdom into his redeeming work. 

Besides, in the divine will and way and order a 
special influence accompanies all preaching, teach- 
ing, and talking, all prayer, praise, and use of the 
Word. The Spirit comes by these channels as 
the water of New York comes through the New 
and the Croton Aqueduct, running, the one on 
the surface of the earth and over the Harlem, the 
other under the surface and below the Harlem, to 
enter ten thousand homes. So by channels the 
Spirit enters the hidden life of every soul that 
opens itself to God, and fills it with himself. 

An illuminated Bible is far more useful than 
one not illuminated. A sacrament administered 
by one in the Spirit has far more power than 
when not so administered. You enter into God 
and he enters into you; and you have found the 
secret of power. “He that abideth in me, and I 
in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit.” The 
church works by a cultivated ministry, an attrac- 
tive building and service, by exquisite music and 


—— sea) eee 


‘ 
” 


-- = 


CHRISTIAN SUCCESS 279 


a crowded congregation. But the church works 
most successfully for its true ends when the Holy 
Ghost is in minister and singer, worshiper and 
worker; when social, intellectual, and artistic in- 
fluences are thoroughly filled with those that are 
moral and spiritual. The kingdom of God—the 
real, invisible, secret, spiritual kingdom of the 
Lord’s hidden oncs and praying ones and believ- 
ing ones and working ones—is not in word, but 
in power; is not in the voice, the tones of the 
speaker; is not in his attitudes; is not in his ges- 
tures and bodily presence. But mainly, does he 
carry the Holy Ghost? ‘The importance of all 
natural power and skill in service is evident on 
every side. But after all, the spiritual inspira- 
tion, direction, and joy, while coming along the 
lines of manner and art and natural force, come 
by the authority and force of a consecrated soul 
behind these. Real, heartfelt, earnest piety back 
of one’s proving and persuading and administering 
is as powder to ball. ‘I in them” is the motto 
for workers. The kingdom of God is not in the 
mere Bible or service or sacrament, but in human- 
ity charged with divinity. What was first of all 
in the thought of Jesus, in the thought of his dis- 
ciples, was the Holy Ghost. Jesus said, ‘“ Tarry 
ye at Jerusalem until ye receive power from on 
high.” Paul said, ‘‘ Ye shall receive power, when 
the Holy Ghost is come upon you.” And the 


280 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


disciples ever said, ‘‘ Have ye received the Holy 
Ghost?” It is the Spirit in you that must be 
below all enthusiasm and behind all energy. It 
is the perpetual inspiration of Jesus Christ that — 
alone will enable you to reach your highest suc- 
cess. This was the great power in the prophets, 
in Jesus, in Paul; ‘the powers of the world to 
come.” It is not fury and heat and tumult of 
thought, but greatness and vigor and calm, this 
power of God. And it is victory, or—to die in 
the Lord. 


CHAPTER XXXII: 
JOY IN GOD. 


THE gospel is glad tidings. It was proclaimed 
with an outgush of song from heaven. It is full 
of Christian psalmody ; full of the inspiration of 
the Holy Ghost. It is righteousness, peace, and 
joy in the Holy Ghost. One possibility of the 
especial divine indwelling is to make this earthly 
existence to have something of joy, and to make 
the heavenly to be full of it. It is as two stars, 
a lesser going round a greater, this very bright 
and that very faint, and yet the inferior ever the 
brighter for its companionship with the superior. 

To describe Christian joy is like describing a 
luster, a fragrance.. Joy is exhilaration; it is ele- 
vation of feeling; it is a making melody in the 
heart; it is mounting up with wings. It is invol- 
untary, without effort; coming at times like the 
flood in the stream, at times without one’s will 
or choice. Yet it is subject to variations; it 
ebbs and flows like the tide. Alternations of feel- 
ing are natural. Many a stream has its rise and 


281 


282 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


fall; many a bright day has its clouds. “ One star 
differeth from another star in glory,” and one 
sphere from another sphere in life and happiness. 
There is the joy of the rippling brook, and of the 
stream dashing and dancing, its rush and leap and 
whirl through the ravine; the joy of all the re- 
joicing earth. There is the bee’s hum, the voice 
of the bird, and the burst of the whole morning 
choir. Life chirps, or drums, or crows, or sings— 
life in flood or field, in earth or air; its pulse is mu- 
sical; it makes the lamb to gambol and the kitten 
to sport, the girl to romp and the boy to shout. 
There is the joy of spring and of the morning; the 
joy of recovery, of reunion, of an open door; the 
joy of a thousand things; it lifts up the head, anc 
for a little upon the inner eye the paradise ap- 
pears. Then the joy of wit and humor and the 
ludicrous; the lover’s lot, the mother’s heart, the 
father’s pride; all the enchantments of adventure 
and enterprise, of the heroic and the chivalrous. 
Everywhere do we meet with joy, even in this 
world of sin and death. It comes up continually, 
like the waves of the sea. 

But an inspired singer says, “ Thou hast put 
gladness in my heart, more than in the time that 
their corn and their wine increased.” In this 
glory of all life, this coming nigh to God, this 
sharing with Christ, there is a sharing of his joy. 
When the soul springs like a bird to its own 


JOY IN GOD 283 


sphere, when the divine life enters especially into 
us, then comes our highest joy, a freshness, a re- 
sponsiveness to creation, to others, and to God, that 
makes us in gratitude and love to see the ever- 
lasting beauty behind all beauty and the ever- 
lasting goodness behind all goodness. We hear 
the music of earth and the music of heaven; we 
have all the views of south land and north land, 
in nature and in grace. Our life is that of a bird 
swinging on the topmost bough and singing ; that 
of a child never ready to come in if playing, 
never hungry if starting a journey; but a run, a 
jump, and a shout. There has been more Chris- 
tian joy than we can conceive of; there is more 
for each than the most do get. The joy of the 
church rises like the voice of the never-sleeping, 
ever-sounding sea. 

Jesus in heavenly light and life was at times 
full of heavenly gladness. ‘ Who for the joy that 
was set before him endured the cross.’”’ His 
first miracle was at a marriage festival. His last 
conversation was, “ That my joy might remain, 

. and that your joy might be full.” 

Similar is the story of the early disciples. In 
Jerusalem they “did eat their meat with glad- 
ness.” In Samaria ‘there was great joy.” In 
Antioch the disciples “were filled with joy and 
with the Holy Ghost.” 

As to its sources. This joy is natural. It is 


284 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


the joy of a religious man’s healthy body; it is 
the joy of a Christian mind in the study and pos- 
session of spiritual truth; it is the joy of a good 
conscience; it is the joy of benevolence. Gospel 
experience tends naturally to give a border of 
brightness to all earthly surroundings. The Chris- 
tian in his toil and endurance feels that he has 
glory, honor, and eternal life. To him even the 
earth bears somewhat the aspect of heaven. 
There is a great shining in his soul. He rises to 
mountain summits and beholds distant glories; 
he sees that earth and heaven meet. The stream 
of his joy receives from all rills and brooks and 
streams of nature. 

This joy is also supernatural, is from a source 
beyond nature, is of the Holy Ghost, is of God 
in us. We are joyful in his joy. In the special 
presence in the soul of the universal Spirit one 
has joy. When the Life that beats and breathes 
in the universe comes especially into the soul one 
has joy. The Wise Man says, “ God giveth to a 
man that is good in his sight, wisdom, and know- 
ledge, and joy.” The nearer to God the more 
the joy; its flush is of the heavenly fire; it is the 
emotion of a soul in him. 

One may, if he will, walk here and work here 
and rest here and live here, be happy in the 
Lord and in all that is the Lord’s—the earth, the 
body, the work; in all he is in Immanuel’s land, 


JOY IN GOD 285 


Beulah land. He who gives their songs to the 
birds gives these joys to his. “In thy name 
shall they rejoice all the day.’”’ He who is born 
of God and bought of God, he who is taught of 
God and led of God, is an inhabitant of the 
hills, the heavenly hills, the Delectable Moun- 
tains. 

Like the beauty of the foundations of the New 
Jerusalem, this divine and spiritual gladness is 
from twelve precious stones; it comes from the 
presence of those jewels of God, the graces. It 
is of religious principles and practices, of states 
and exercises of the heart. 

There is the joy of illumination. In the light 
from above, in the vision of the love and glory of 
God, in the vision of our Lord, in himself and his 
offices, there is uplifting sunshine; the joy of him 
who is the Light of the World, the Sun of Right- 
eousness, the Bright and Morning Star. There 
is the joy of one whose mind is made clear; who 
beholds in all the wonderful world things many, 
of guidance, comfort, and emancipation. The 
land on which this light shines is not a dark, but 
a bright land, one where the fairest live, and live 
a long while, and with joy draw water out of the 
wells of salvation. We all know how dull the 
scene in a hard, dark, chilly day —how unpoetic ; 
and then the change in our mood—how we lift 
up—when the sun lights up. So spiritual illumi- 


286 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


nation lights up our material world, our home, 
our social world, our work-world. 

There is the joy of faith, of saving faith, of 
sense of guilt removed. Thousands have felt it 
in its freshness and fullness, this thrilling first 
experience of religion, this burst of the new-born 


soul singing, “I will greatly rejoice, . . . my soul 
shall be joyful in my God; for he hath clothed 
me with the garments of salvation.”” And there 


is the joy of all faith in him who is the river that 
makes glad the city of God, him who is the ladder 
of the dream of Jacob, and carries us from earth 
to heaven. The Apostle said, “ Believing, ye 
rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.” 
He could neither measure nor describe it, but it 
rolled his soul along, and on, and on, like a rush- 
ing stream, to the endless sea. 

There, too, 1s'the joy: of hope. “We xeaaeaee 
joice in hope of the glory of God.” In the heart 
in Christ hope flashes and beams, and fills the 
soul with singing: hope of the leadings of the 
Spirit; hope of rising from the dead; hope of de- 
liverances and transitions and likenesses through 
the working of the great and powerful agency 
within us; hope ‘“‘that mortality might be swal- 
lowed up of life”; ‘hope of the glory of God.” 
Hope is a bird, free, flying, soaring. Hope is 
a child; ever is something beckoning— birthday, 
Christmas, vacation, a visit. The Christian antici- 


- JOY IN- GOD 287 


pates; he has the brightest, sunniest, most de- 
lightful of expectations. “1 will see you again,”’ 
said Jesus, “and your heart shall rejoice, and 
your joy no man taketh from you. lam the 
door;” from what, and unto what? The Lord 
in the Apocalypse is seated on a rainbow throne, 
seal of covenant and token of hope. There is the 
future; the sense of good things now, the hope 
of good things then; new thoughts, new loves, 
new words, new sights to see, new efforts made. 
Joy is the sea-bird flying out over the ocean 
of the future. When the Christian looks back in 
review, looks around in observation, looks forward 
in expectation, his feeling is, “dtd; thou hast 
done great things for me, whereof I am glad.” 
One of old sang, ‘Thou wilt show me the path 
of life: in thy presence is fullness of joy.” Stead- 
ily as the stars that future shines. 

Sometimes the joy of assurance is ours. We 
are rescued, transformed, irradiated, filled. We 
feel sure that we are to have the eternal blessed- 
ness. The very heavens are opened; the angels 
of God are ascending and descending. We are 
saved. The trees of the field wave it, the birds 
of the air repeat it in their songs. 

There is the joy of obedience, of service ren- 
dered the Lord, of duty done; the feelings rise 
like the waves, that none can keep down. A 
good conscience 1s pure delight; it carries one 


288 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


along like a fair wind a ship. In the doing one’s 
duty on all lower planes is a certain joy; but 
much more so in the doing one’s duty on the 
higher planes. Said the psalmist, “I delight to 
do thy will, O my God.” Devotedness in obedi- 
ence to the Lord is a joyous service. ‘‘ Blessed 
are they that hear the Word of God, and keep it.” 

This life which is distinct in itself and yet is 
life in another has the joy of Christian service, 
the joy of disseminating the gospel, the special 
presence and blessing of the Master. It is a glad 
service; it cheers one as he goes on in it. As 
men march to music, so Christians march—stead- 
ily, buoyantly, full of life; happy souls, ever sing- 
ing when in the service of their Saviour. Faith 
and love and hope and God’s presence make 
them cheery. 

And there is the gladness of success. Spon- 
taneous is the shout of success; this anywhere 
and everywhere. But in religion there is in the 
shout an inspiration of God, a lofty and exultant 
hymn and song of the soul. We have been put 
to the work and we have won by labors; have 
been put to the fighting and we have won by 
strokes. There is the joy of jubilee. 

There is delight in the ordinances. ‘ Serve the 
Lord with gladness: come before his presence with 
singing.” Here in religious meeting, here in his 
house, entering into his high and holy ordinances, 


JOY IN. GOD 289 


is the Lord of glory himself. The spirit is quick- 
ened; the eye is cleared, and opened to the hea- 
venly things; the heart receives many tokens of 
the divine goodness, and is light. It kindles toa 
flame, becomes filled with holy ardor and resolu- 
tion, maybe gets into the very sunlight of heaven. 

There is the joy of festivals. At Christmas, 
the festival of the incarnation, with feasting and 
with joy we celebrate the birth of our Saviour. 
Then the blessed angels stopped their endless 
songs in heaven, and their melody, unutterable by 
us, rose and fell on earth; a distinct and special 
song of those they sing unceasingly. They sang 
in joy that God was given to man; sang of the 
Redeemer, of the living Lord come in human form 
to lighten all that lives. And every anniversary is 
a day of heaven, a day of gladness to those severed 
from God and slaves of sin. The Liberator ts 
here. From the beginning he had been coming. 
The first steps of Jehovah in the eventide of 
paradise were the first steps of the Promised 
One toward his coming in the flesh. Now is the 
faith of the fathers realized. And Simeon in his 
turn in the temple, waiting, standing for them all, 
exclaims, ‘ Lord, now lettest thou thy servant 
depart in peace: .. . for mine eyes have seen thy 
salvation.” It had been a long watch, that of him 
and his; it is over. The “fullness of time”’ is 
come. That angels’ song in the midnight calm 


290 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


has been followed by many a broad, bright sun- 
rise. 

There is the joy of those persecuted for right- 
eousness’ sake. When the apostles had been 
beaten, “‘they departed from the presence of 
the council rejoicing.”” One’s spiritual percep- 
tions may become so clear as to give, in some in- 
stances, a joy that takes away suffering. Stephen 
in his dying had a vision that made his face to 
shine. Paul and Silas, hungry and beaten with 
rods, in the stocks and at midnight, sang praises, 
and all the prisoners heard them. When the 
venerable Ignatius, who had been a disciple of 
St. John, was looking forward to his martyrdom, 
he had so much of that joy which is a fruit of the 
Spirit that not only his enemies, but his friends, 
were astonished. 

And so the stream of joy receives from all rills 
and brooks and streams of the works, the Word, 
and the Spirit of God. On its banks we hear the 
music of earth and the music of heaven. On its 
bosom we have all views in nature, in society, 
and in religion. This bright spirit is true and 
healthy and wholesome; it gives vigor. It does 
not overtire the body or blunt the perceptions or 
confuse the reflections. It does not dissipate the 
mind or enervate the soul; it concentrates the 
mind and strengthens the soul. It makes more 


JOY IN GOD 291 


easy the inconveniences and infelicities of life; 
the natural afflictions, sad and heavy as they some- 
times are. Often is joy the flower, heart’s-ease, 
on the river’s shore, while he who plucks it heals 
his hurt. The bent one straightens up again. 
When the Jews returning from Babylon wept at 
the foundation of their temple because of its little- 
ness and their weakness, the prophet said, ‘“‘ The 
joy of the Lord is your strength.” If we have to 
travel, let us have this joy to travel with; if to 
labor, this joy to labor with; if to suffer, this joy 
to suffer with. The Christian soldier never fights 
so well as when he fights in joy. 

Then let us remember that this joy belongs not 
to things fleeting, but to things abiding. Storms 
cannot destroy, fire cannot burn, water cannot 
drown it. It belongs to the sea, with its ebb and 
flow forever; to the infinite throng of those stars 
that never wear nor grow dim. It is the radi- 
ance of heaven on earth. We need it in this 
world. 

But what is the joy of heaven? The joy of 
perfect completeness, perfect soundness, perfect 
health, perfect relations with all that is about, 
all personal surroundings, all nature, all society ; 
the sinful and sorrowful state ended, victory at 
last; the mists lifted from valley and hillside, and 
a whole bright new world in view. Study con- 


i a hee eye ene iy os + 


2O2, THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


stellation after constellation in those heavens; 
now slowly and now quickly pursue your way 
until the whole world of glory breaks in; and 
then know how much they have gained whom 
earth has lost. 


GTA Ra Ox ODE 
PEACE IN GOD. 


IT is noteworthy, the continual allusion in the 
Epistles to peace in connection with God, to 
peace as coming from God, and to peace in the 
souls of believers. Every one of Paul’s Epistles 
opens with the invocation of peace. Those of 
Peter and John make the invocation over and 
over. 

In studying the Spirit’s work upon us we come 
at last to peace. Sometimes, on a summer’s day, 
one storm follows another; the sky gets heavy 
with vapor and dark with cloud, and down comes 
the rain; but suddenly all is clear and the warm 
sunbeams-are felt. So is life; often, or occasion- 
ally, there are storms. In these it is good to get 
that restfulness which is in the Lord and his work. 
In whatever storm, the Christian can have Jesus 
sooner or later appear and say, ‘‘ Peace, be still;”’ 
can see him walking on the waves, and hear him 
say, ‘‘It is I; be not afraid;” in whatever fear, 

293 


294 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


behind closed doors, can have him suddenly 
appear and say, “ Peace be unto you.” 

It is of this precious and supreme peace that I 
wish to speak. A great teaching is here, a great 
gift from the other world to us in this hurrying 
world, and from. him who is Lord in it. God's 
child need not be feverish or hurried or fretted ; 
need not be bustling or restless. He can let go 
his cares, and by ministries of nature and grace 
be cared for. 

Peace is the result of causes. A common 
seed is the result of movement, system, and 
cause at work. Fruit is a result of root and stem, 
of branches and leaves; a result of the flowers 
with stamens and pistils. Strawberry or rasp- 
berry or blackberry, all berries and apples, all 
pods and cones and nuts, come thus. So peace 
is a result: a result of perfect appropriation of 
the Lord, a result of his indwelling. 

God mostly works in peace, in quiet ways. 
Even the making and finishing of the earth must 
have been comparatively quiet; the putting the 
loose material into beds, the laying of the strata, 
the lifting of the continents; even the dislocation 
of the rocks and the breaking up the framework of 
the mountains; the spreading the rubbish of their 
ruin—these mighty works were done in much still- 
ness. Go out early on a summer morning, when 
all the grass, the shrubs, the trees stand in life; or 


PEACE IN GOD 295 


walk in mind through all the earth of herbs and 
trees. The upholding, on-moving power is be- 
yond thought, and yet the action is the still 
sweep of the fiver of life. God works and yet 
rests, and his resting hinders not his working, and 
in his working he has rest—infinite rest and eternal 
peace. So in grace he mostly works in a quiet 
way. The light comes without your feeling it. It 
steals on and over the earth, the gleam of it on 
everything. We do not hear the sound of its 
coming; we but open our eyes and are in the 
midst of it. Quietly comes the light of God, re- 
vealing form and substance in things unseen. In 
it one perceives unerringly the way of life, the 
great privileges and duties of the Christian, and 
rests in the vision. 

God gives peace. He who made the breadth 
of the sky and the silence of the field to be in 
somewhat symbols of himself, gave this heavenly 
peace to his Son, who in turn gives it tous. Down 
from God in his eternal rest it comes to his child, 
that he may go an even way; may have no anx- 
iety, no strife, no shock; may not let go his hold 
on God when the world or the devil storms in, 
nor be appalled when every evil seems to have 
arrived. Sometimes in such case peace rises 
until it fills the soul. 

God does not wait to the last to give this bless- 
ing, but gives it now, that each may go comfor- 


296 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


tably his way through all the fatigue, the trial, and 
assault of life. “I will give you rest.” As to 
those who walk with our Lord, as his light be- 
comes somewhat their light, his love their love, 
so his peace becomes somewhat their peace. 
While he had feelings that would rise and fall, 
while he had to give attention and get tired, yet 
he was quiet. In prophecy it was said of him, 
‘“ He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice 
to be heard in the street ;’’ and he was called “the 
Prince of Peace.” Now to them who are with 
him in the sonship the Lord gives of this peace. 
When he wanted to leave to his disciples all that 
he could to make up for their loss he touchingly 
says, “ Peace I leave with you.” One here and 
another there receive this peace of the Master. 
When he reigns peace shall reign; this in families 
and churches, in communities and nations; no 
heated controversies, no bitter quarrels, no more 
fighting. ‘ And they shall beat their swords into 
plowshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks: 
nation shall not lift up sword against nation, 
neither shall they learn war any more.” 

Further, this great and splendid possibility of 
the Christian comes by the other graces. It 
comes by faith; the vision of faith tends to peace. 
In our faith we leave with God our cares and 
desires, our labors and sorrows. We cease to be 
tossed about by every wind that blows. Abraham 


PEACE IN GOD 207 


received rest by believing God concerning a home 
and ason. So may any one have peace who is 
convinced that the Lord reigns and that “all 
things work together for good to them that love 
God.” However much shall happen in the day, 
its beginning is still. The green fields are quiet, 
perhaps in part because we are quiet who look 
at them; are mentally and physically rested. 
All around in the stillness is the glittering sun- 
shine. A boundless and unbroken peace is sug- 
gested. So the spiritual vision, while lively and 
vigorous, is calm and composing. 

Faith makes wonderfully for peace: the steady 
leaning on Him who cannot fail or be mistaken, 
who has made general promises for general states 
and special promises for special states; the sense 
of God’s help against all evil, and of God’s keep- 
ing for all good; every interest secure come what 
may ; confidence in God’s knowledge and method 
and power. Onecan look sin in the face, fear in 
the face, sickness in the face, death in the face. 
“Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose 
mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in 
cg aVetey sh 

Peace also comes by love. God is love and 
dwells in its everlasting rest, and would have his 
own so dwell. To love as he loves, even all 
things good, is to make one’s self to be in peace. 

Peace comes by hope. It is the pathos of life 


298 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


to toil and struggle, wear out and finally lie down. 
Now hope, in shape and grace an angel of para- 
dise, is sent to earth to minister toman. ‘ Hope 
and quietly wait’’—quietly for treasures of rest 
for souls tired with this world’s work; quietly for 
celestial freedoms from toil and care, from sick- 
ness and sorrow, from disappointment and pain; 
quietly wait for the coming of Him who will not 
tarry. To look forward to this, neither tiring in 
action nor in thought, is the beginning of the 
soul’s everlasting rest, is the first-fruits of the 
peace within everlasting glory. 

It gives peace to obey: to be ready to do; to 
have the mind made up now; to stand at rest 
waiting to go in God’s direction and rule. In 
good conscience, in duty done, is tranquillity ; in 
the laws of life kept is the peace of health. In 
every case it is true, ‘Great peace have they 
As the divine indwelling 


) 


which love thy law.’ 
makes men subject to the divine order, peace 
reigns. It is because the earth, the moon, the 
inferior planets and the superior, move each in its 
place that they never collide in their wonderful 
progression. Momentum enough there is in the 
mighty revolutions, but there is a steady, direc- 
tive force, and a ready yielding to that force. 
All the circling of these worlds, rolling in the 
sunlight, is obedient to the heavenly wisdom; 
hence harmony throughout the system from 


PEACE IN GOD 299 


boundary to boundary. So in man “the work 
of righteousness shall be peace’; the work of 
law and order. The righteousness may be by a 
process and the peace may be by a process, but 
finally the work will be done. 

Thus in the graces is the beginning of peace in 
all its forms. In those powers are the eternal 
roots of this fair tree. On such ground does the 
fair building rise. 

Of the nature of this peace not much need be 
said ; and yet he who has found this secret of ex- 
istence has something to say. This peace is not 
the gratification of every innocent desire; it is 
only acquiescence with things, though not a 
guilty acquiescence; it is reconciliation, which is 
not always satisfaction. It is more easily gotten 
than satisfaction, though both are often sought 
where not found. It is not the ending of work 
and fatigue. It is not exemption from temptation 
—even the Saviour was not so exempt. It is not 
exemption from struggle with evil in its various 
forms—even the Saviour was not so exempt. 

There is the peace of the night: the sun has 
set; the labor and struggle of the day are over; 
nothing more can be done till the sun rises; the 
curtains are drawn; one is at home. Let worry 
sink like a stone to the bottom of the stream. 
There is no telling the peace which night has 
brought to earth’s weary millions; the peace it has 


300 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


brought in every age, the peace it brings in every 
land. It is an ancient, it is a present longing, that 
for the setting of the sun. There is the Lord’s 
day: free of distraction and burden-bearing, a 
rest for the weary brain and troubled heart, a re- 
freshing and renewal. That which one sees and 
takes of the Lord makes that life be such a day. 


“The year of jubilee rolls round, 
And we, by faith made whole, 
Have rest from sin, a peace profound, 
The sabbath of the soul.” 


There is rest from fear of some near or far- 
future ill; a firm confidence in God; a deliver- 
ance from imaginative evils, from worries. There 
is a “casting all your care upon him ”s not one 
care, but all care. There is the peace of the 
child put into the cradle from the mother’s arms: 
the soft bed, the slow rocking, the lulling song ; 
the gentle, trusted presence; the adjusting if need 
be; strong arms if need be. So in the Lord we 
cease from our trying and our crying, our anxious 
thought. His face draws us, and by his presence 
we overcome. 

There is rest from all disquieting and anxious 
reasonings—reasonings perplexed by insolvable 
mysteries, reasonings where reason is not power- 
ful enough to give rest. One leaves the system of 
things with God, and gets above this nature that 


PEACE IN GOD 301 


has done so much to make us and to mar us, this 
nature that is so often the cause of our failure, 
this nature that makes us hard toil and sharp 
pain and heavy bereavement. He gets above the 
circumstances that sour and irritate and some- 
times madden. He gets to be patient in trial, 
submissive in disappointment, forgiving in all in- 
jury, and at rest in all evil; for his life is “ hid 
with Christ in God.” The world has its com- 
motions, its contentions ; but amid all its agitation 
and strife there may come this experience, fresh 
out of heaven. Paul had this peace when false 
doctrines were rife and he was very zealous for 
the true; when religious discussion was abroad 
and he himself was a leader in it; when persecu- 
tion was rife and he was in prison and maybe to 
die. Still he wrote to the Colossians: ‘ Let the 
peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which 
also ye are called.” 

There is peace with one’s self. Though weak- 
ness there be, and defects there be, and sins there 
be, still one has in much given up self-care and 
handed himself over to God. One puts the ter- 
rible discords of selfishness and anger and all the 
other evil beasts into Christ’s keeping; the strife 
that one would have over, and the risings that he 
would have forever put down; all the fight with © 
sins in the body and sins within the soul is put 
under Christ’s charge. There is peace with one’s 


302 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


body, with its debility, its disease, its aging ; peace 
with one’s mental constitution and all one’s natural 
make-up. 

This is spiritual peace: like the night of the 
city, the treadmills of toil are deserted, the last 
roll of the city’s thunder has ceased, the streets 
gleam in the light of the moon, and there is no 
sound. It is a ministry of peace, like the quiet 
of the broad, deep river and of the mountains 
through which it runs; like the quiet of the 
woods; you quit the houses, you cross the fields, 
you enter the woods, you are in their great still- 
ness. Soisit when God’s eternal work is wrought 
in us, and that sweet promise is fulfilled, “ My 
people shall dwell in a peaceable habitation, and 
in sure dwellings, and in quiet resting-places.” 
It is the peace of the Lord and a part of our 
completeness in him. Every fair day of his has 
in the peace of nature an emblem of this. Every 
church service has in its stillness an emblem of 
this. Even the very subtle and sweet harmony 
of our praises who stand singing below is an 
emblem of this. 

More and more in the manifestation of the 
Spirit is there peace. It is natural peace. With 
it things are natural, we are natural. Unique 
soul-possession as it is, it is felt amid natural 
surroundings and the world’s life. There need 


PEACE IN GOD 303 


be no withdrawing into solitudes. The imagina- 
tive and metaphysical and mystical theory of 
some about it is not true to it; for their peace 
when experienced is unsubstantial and unnatu- 
ral. It is, indeed, possible to see or trust or 
love without thought or word or motion, and in 
our inmost souls to go forth into that which is 
seen or trusted or loved; and this gives peace. 
But spiritual peace embraces far more than the 
peace of contemplation or than the calm of 
changeless, motionless absorption. Especially is 
it more than that false peace where the ideal 1s 
realized: to do and think and feel and will as 
little as possible; one sinking away into an eter- 
nal afternoon rest; one counting to be still the 
height of enjoyment. Our Lord’s peace is not 
blank vacuity of soul, unthinking ecstasy; the 
leaving sense and thought behind; the being a 
placid lake to receive and reflect images; the re- 
posing in a kind of nothingness; no real self- 
moved thought or prayer or praise. All this is 
unnatural; it is will power, and in the very name 
of the annihilation of will. Peace is not the con- 
tinually making one’s self as a waveless, tideless 
ocean. In spiritual peace you have the naturally 
varied life of man, the varied objects of thought 
and affection; you behold things one by one and 
in succession, and see to-morrow what you did 


304 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


not see to-day; you have peace in connection 
with all the movements of natural life. 

It is living peace: life on every side, yet 
peace. One has toil even, strain even; one has 
thought and word and motion, sight and know- 
ledge; one takes in things great or beautiful or 
wise; all the things of Him who made them all. 
There is life, broad, deep, and active; there is the 
hush of a heart of fire and not of ice; the calm 
of a face ruddy with life and not white in death. 

You enter a great manufactory. You see the 
engine.. One sits by it ina chair, and on a eat- 
pet governs it by a touch, and it moves every 
shaft and belt in the building; yet it is noiseless. 
Step out upon the lawn in the evening and look 
up to the sky. There are tremendous bodies 
moving at tremendous speed, and yet in their in- 
conceivable swiftness as they bowl through space 
there isno noise. In this shining firmament, with 
its eternal tranquillity and yet everlasting move- 
ment, we have a perfect symbol of the eternal 
spirit-world. 

There is the final and everlasting peace. ‘Those 
dying in the Lord depart into this peace. Every 
faithful one shall depart into ‘the rest that re- 
maineth for the people of God.” He that in 
paradise is united to God has no disturbance— 
none from fear, none from pain, none from sin. 
Where fear and pain and sin are not, and unceas- 


PEACE IN GOD 305 


ing grace forever reigns, there shall be unwearying 
and unwearied rest. They have peace and ever- 
lasting rest, the holy angels and the spirits of ~ 
just men made perfect, who reach to hear the 
heavenly anthem that sounds and plays for ay. 


CHAPTER XXXV. 
GLORIFICATION. 


JESUS in his last conversation spoke of a future 
and blessed state in which he thoroughly believed 
with all his human soul. He passed into that 
state in his ascension, as our forerunner. Life in 
him carries us to a greater life in him. Read 
carefully and you will see this perfecting and 
glorifying, this completing of salvation. This is 
the last doctrine, the last subject of faith, the 
great experience—this glorification. It is the 
final mystery of redemption, an enlarged work 
and measure of special divine impulse. All the 
sons of God have come to their great inheritance. 

There are beginnings of the Spirit upon earth, 
where unnumbered people have received some- 
thing of it, and from whence numberless persons 
have by it been raised to reign in everlasting life : 
all the born and unborn little ones; all that greater 
host than ever, the living host on the earth; all 


the innocent; and all those who have lived by 
306 


GLORIFICATION 307 


faith: these ‘shall shine as the brightness of the 
firmament.” 

This glory is but revealed. We know not the 
manner of its coming, its outbursting, its bright 
appearance. It may be instantaneous, it may be 
gradual. Things in the Bible point to its being 
like the lightning. Individual differences shall 
continue: ‘‘ One star differeth from another star 
in glory.” The body shall exist, of the Spirit and 
glorified. The same resurrection in the Lord’s 
case and in ours. 

There is transition: change from one state to 
another, a sinful to a sinless. “ This corruptible 
must put on incorruption, and this mortal must 
put on immortality.” Finally, the present system 
makes transition. There comes a “ restitution of 
all things”’; a righting and restoring. 

There is translation: a change from one place 
to another; from the visible to the invisible, from 
earth to heaven. There shall be a land, and you 
may rest assured that it shall be a homelike land. 
To be sure, we enter within boundaries without 
the present visible earth, but they exist for our 
future human experience. 

There is transformation: a change from one 
form to another; from a dying to an undying 
body; to a form fashioned from within, even as 
with the seed that springs up in the earth, the 
warmth, and the moisture. 


308 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


So, then, the present form shall perish; we 
shall die. Jesus said, “ Verily, verily, I say unto 
you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground 
and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth } 
forth much fruit.””> The Old Testament calls, “‘ He 
giveth his beloved sleep,’ and the New Testa- 
ment responds, of ‘ the dead in Christ,” of them 
“which are fallen asleep in Christ.” Tenderly, 
and in words which are a prophecy, is this death, 
which is everywhere, changed, transformed, into a 
life which is forever, by some readjustment, into 
a life in new forms. 

Now we understand the Scriptures: that hope 
of the Old Testament, the coming of the Lord; 
and that hope of the New Testament, the return 
of the Lord. Now we understand the pointing 
forward of much Christian doctrine and even of 
Christian ordinances. 

Now we understand the longing of the saints: 
that old singer’s sure feeling, though he be dead 
ages ago: “ But God will redeem my soul from 
the power of the grave;’’ the Apostle’s narration 
of experience: “ For we that are in this tabernacle 
do groan, being burdened: not for that we would 
be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality 
might be swallowed up of life ;’-his further testi- 
mony : ‘‘ We also, which have the first-fruits of the 
Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, 
waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption 


GLORIFICATION 309 


of our body.” Here is something to be reached 
after and taken hold of. This is the goal, this 
“the prize of the high calling of God in Christ 
Jesus.” For this the earnest expectation of the 
creature waits. To this the believer looks for- 


ward. 
‘Rivers to the ocean run, 
Nor stay in all their course; 
Fire ascending seeks the sun; 
Both speed them to their source; 
So a soul that’s born of God 
Pants te view his glorious face.” 


There are natural and supernatural longings: 
to welcome deliverance from the bondage of cor- 
ruption; to triumph by faith over the king of 
terrors. With such intensity of desire some reach 
after that glorious consummation, the endless 
life. 


CHAPTER (XX26v T 
CONCLUSION. 


I HAVE now tried to put the doctrine of the 
divine indwelling not as vague, uncertain, and 
indefinite—something shadowy—but rather as 
something certain and substantial. I have tried 
to state the teaching clearly and positively. I 
have attempted to unfold and establish it, to 
amplify and illustrate it. 

We have been studying the mystery of the 
words of Jesus: ‘‘ Abide in me, and I in you;”’ 
studying the Divine Being, not as transcendent, 
but as immanent, as in a mystical union with us; 
as essential, fundamental. He is not simply the 
support of conviction and conversion; not sim- 
ply the radical beginning, but also the continu- 
ing; the support of all the great generic states of 
Christian experience, all the gracious affections in 
their fervor, all the gracious practices in their de- 
votion. The great conception is of him with God 
in him. However hidden God may be, he is the 


great underlying power in the universe. How- 
310 


CONCLUSION cul 


ever hidden you may be, in shade or silence, his 
Spirit is in you. 

The very genius and spirit of our experience 
and our Bible is this great free gift of God, this 
presence and activity of his Spirit. 

In experience you make the discovery of his 
nearness: just the opening of the eyes of faith. 
Paul says, “ Striving according to his working, 
which worketh in me mightily.” However he 
knew it, he had it. He may have known it by 
direct consciousness, by the witness of the Spirit ; 
or he may have known it by its effects. Was 
there, on the one hand, a direct assurance, or, on 
the other, a feeling like that of physical vigor, an 
exhilaration; or again, simply a belief, a convic- 
tion drawn from certain evidences of the fruits of 
the Spirit ? 

In the Bible the Old Testament points out the 
Spirit’s indwelling as the great privilege of New 
Miectatient. times, is in Ezekiel: “ And I will 
put my Spirit within you;” in Joel: “And it 
shall be in the last days, saith God, I will pour 
forth my Spirit upon all flesh.”” The last of the 
prophets, John the Baptist, said, ‘“He that com- 
eth after me shall baptize you with the Holy 
Ghost.” The last emphatic word of our Lord 
was concerning this; his last and chief thought 
pudecesire He Said itis expedientsfom you 
that I go away: for if I go not away, the Com- 


312 THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


forter will not come unto you.” Just what the 
connection was between the going of Christ and 
the coming of the Spirit has not been revealed. 
We may, however, say that only now could the 
Spirit have such truth about Christ, to work from 
and with, as seems to be needed. The facts 
about him seem to be the great organon or in- 
strumentality of salvation. Spiritual influence is 
thereby so increased as to become practically a 
new influence. The Spirit’s preaching could now 
come home as never before. The person and 
work, the resurrection and reign of Christ, when 
taught by the Spirit, would work so efficiently, 
produce so many and great results, that observant 
men of God would speak of the Spirit “ poured 
out,’ of “the latter-day glory.” Now all the 
disciples at Pentecost were baptized with the 
Holy Ghost; now the three thousand who gladly 
received Peter’s word about Christ; now Corne- 
lius and his Gentile company ; now the disciples 
whom Paul met at Ephesus; now Stephen and 
Barnabas and all—Jews, Samaritans, and heathen. 
Paul says in 1 Corinthians: “For in one Spirit 
were we all baptized.” The indwelling was the 
one great experience. The ages since have wit- 
nessed a powerful manifestation of this life within 
the life of man. 

This great fact of the faith is at the foundation ; 
is the root of the tree of life, with all its fruits— 


CONCLUSION 313 


duties, privileges; but is itself life, and not merely 
one or another blessing of life, passing or lasting 
appearance of life, but everything of life; the 
spring and all that flows from it. \ It is what you 
are, rather than what you do, that is to be sought 
after. It is life rather than this or that fruit of 
Pes Fees not ineres existence; the keeping, 
soul and body together, the mere continuing or 
perfecting of one’s nature. It is life in the Bible 
sense, in the Lord’s sense: an outgoing life—such 
life as God has, such life as his Spirit gives; life 
given to the worthiest ends; life given to God, 
and filled with all the blessing of God. 5o great, 
so rich, so fullis our humanity in him; so contin- 
ually comes this enriching from on high: when 
we sit with folded arms in weakness; when we 
creep or walk or run. The Spirit is the air we 
breathe. No bounds or walls can keep him out. 
We take him in by ways more than ordinary, by 
senses more than five. It is a large measure 
which he has who enters into God and lives in 
the presence of the Lord. 

It is this teaching that I have in this book tried 
to understand and appreciate. This is the true 
philosophy of life, the natural and deepest source 
of life, the solution of “ the whole world’s prob- 
lem how to carry the burden of life’’: to be as 
Christ was; to think and receive as he did; to go 
forward along the line on which he went forward. 


pal THE DIVINE INDWELLING 


He says, “ Learn of me.’”’ Most of all did he 
live with the Father. How close, too, in Jesus 
the divine and human are! Turn to him and see 
the chief One in whom is the divine indwelling. 
Witness his emancipation and consolation, his 
consecration and service, his joy and peace. 

The Lord represents and gathers up in himself 
allmen. He is the Son of man, and the organic 
head of redeemed humanity. When he took our 
nature he, with the rest, took our relations to the 
Holy Spirit. He received the Spirit as we do. 
His is the mold, the pattern, the form. He is 
man at his highest; man in great experiences, 
great communings, great entrances into the secret 
place of the divine presence. His is no other 
than our own humanity—no strange, unnatural 
manhood, but man as God thought him, man as 
the other world perfects him; the type and stan- 
dard; a man to whose face no earthly face fully 
corresponds, but to the strength and beauty of 
which many a human face is growing. . There is 
power to receive the same divine life he had—our 
lives to be like his, though only as the dewdrop 
to the ocean that goes round the globe. Let 
God enter and you have this never-failing, never- 
dying life. Put yourself where Christ can find 
you and you can feel his power. It is for you 
he is forever seeking. Try yourself to find him, 
for only thus will you be found of him. 


CONCLUSION Brie 


We must come to our Lord. Everything be- 
comes clear in that life which is our perpetual 
study and inspiration. Christ in his own person 
and life was a manifestation of the reality of the 
divine indwelling. He stands as our example. 
He who is in Christ has a heart like the Master’s— 
for the gain of others; a longing for their life and 
liberty and joy; even the gain of all this crying 
world. He who is in Christ has the Christianity 
he taught and lived, and shall go as Christ has 
gone, and be as Christ has been, even glorified. 


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Halt-leather, spinkled6dgesic, ces. .vinbe sa os ieese seh wccien 1.50 
Half-roan, cloth sides, gilt) €dgese.. ocsk iss nec cwence ete net, 2.50 


Few Bible students are aware of the great value of the xofes 
scattered through the unabridged edition of Cruden. They are 
invaluable, but are only to be found in the complete edition. 

Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible: Its Antiquities, Biography, 
Geography, and Natural History. With numerous illustrations 
and maps. Worker's Edition. 8vo, cloth..........+.s0000 1.50 

This work contains over 500 engravings, and is a complete 
guide to the pronunciation and signification of scriptural names; 
the solution of difficulties of interpretation, authority and har- 
mony. Also, a history and description of Biblical customs, 
manners, events, places, persons, animals, plants, minerals, etc. 
It is a most complete encyclopedia of Biblical information. 

Topical Text Book. A Scripture Text Book for the Use of 
Ministers, Teachers, Visitors, etc. Parts I. and IJ. in one 
VO MTN CoML OLN Oe CLOC Mn ercrset oie rete crsicterete sor sasiere clislelecelelisls ters ihe ase .60 

‘*‘T fiud one of the very best ways to study the scriptures is 
to study Jopically.”—D. L. Moody. 

The Works or Flavius Josephus. Translated by William Whis- 
ton, A.M. With life, portrait, notes, andindex A New Edition 
Pi Clear TIPCLA BVO, ClOU is waeg noes end dente ese nee es vee neta I.50 

A Complete Dictionary of Synonyms and Antonyms; or, 
Synonyms and Words of Opposite Meaning. By Rev. Samuel 
Hallows, A.M. <16m0, Clothes seins cess so resgs sone sense I,00 

Contains also an Appendix embracing a dictionary of Britic- 
isms, Americanisms, Colloquial Phrases, etc., in current use; the 
grammatical uses of Prepositions, and Prepositions Discrimi- 
nated; a list of Homonyms and Homophonous Words; a collec- 
tion of Foreign Phrases, and complete list of Abbreviations and 
Contractions used in writing and printing. 

Revell’s Imperial Globe Atlas of Modernand Ancient Geography. 
Containing 53 imperial quarto maps, with an index of 20,000 
names. Large 4to, 12X14, ClOtH....,...-seeereeeeveeeees net, 1,00 


Illustrations and Outlines. 
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My Sermon Notes. A Selection from Outlines of Discourses de- 
livered at the Metropolitan Tabernacle. By C. H. Spurgeon. 
z2mo, cloth, each $1.00; the set, boxéd.:s.i wh... due eee 4.00 


1. Genesis to Proverbs. 2. Ecclesiastes to Malachi. 3. Mat- | 
thew to Acts. 4. Romans to Revelation. 


“The title * Not.s’ implies only the bones of the skeleton, 
and to those who believe that sermons are dry, what must the 
skeleton be. Well, we are not afraid to recommend these skele- 
tons, even to the laity, for every bone suggest and supplies its 
appropriate tissue.’’— 7e Evangelist, 


Seed Corn for the Sower; or, Thoughts, Themes, and Illustra- 
tions, for Pulpit and Platform, and for Home Readings. By Rev. 
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‘**To teachers and all engaged in Bible instruction, it will 
prove a volume of great help and usefulness and furnish ready 
to their hand many a nail with which to fasten in a sure place 
the truths they may desire to drive home.” —Christian Work. 


Scripture Itself the Illustrator. A Manual of Illustrations 
Gathered from Scriptural Figures, Phrases, Types, Deriva- 
tions, Chronology, Texts, etc. By Rev. S.G. Bowes. 12mo, 
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Information and Illustration for Preachers and Teachers. 
Helps Gathered from Facts, Figures, Anecdotes, and Books, 
for Sermons, Lectures, and Addresses. By Rev. S. G. Bowes. 
FeO, CIOEN : [297% sais = atic he ates Renee oe 0 en 1.25 


The Nonsuch Professor in His Meridian Splendor; or, The 
Singular Actions of Sanctified Christians. By Rev. William 
Secker. Introduction by -Revs2 i. Lf Cuyler DD: 16mo, 
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Observer. 


Feathers for Arrows; or, Illustrations for Preachers and 
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‘**The work covers a wide range of subjects. The metaphors 
are always striking and frequently brilliant. while the truths 
that they illustrate are such as have always formed the staple of 
Mr. Spurgeon’s discourses. A choicer collection of illustrations 


we do not know.”’— 7khe Freeman. 
Spurgeon’s Gems. Being Brilliant Passages from His Discourses, 
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Gleanings Among the Sheaves. By C. H. Spurgeon. 18mo, 
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Windows; or, Gospel Lights for Gospel Subjects. Suggestions 
for Addresses and Lessons on Scripture Rinbiems By Sarah G. 
Stock. Many illustrations. remo, cloth................... .60 


** The lessons, each one full of good points, will prove hel 
ful in furnishing topics and matter for short addresses,”’— 72 
Church Advocate, 


Christian Evidences, etc. 
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Many Infallible Proofs. The Evidences of Christianity. By | 
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completely covered the whole battlefield of unbelief, meeting 
the doubter at every point with a candor that captivates, anda 
logic that conquers.” — The Morning Star. 


None Like It. A Plea for the Old Sword. By Rev. Joseph 
Parker, D.D., author of ‘‘ The People’s Bible.”’ 12mo, cloth 1.25 
A defense of the inspiration and authority of the Bible. 
‘‘ The spirit of the work is as sweet as its blows are sturdy. 
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I Believe in God the Father Almighty. By Rev. John Henry 
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A Lawyer’s Examination of the Bible. By H. H. Russell. 
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“The case of the Bible is presented in such a way as to 
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Atonement: The Fundamental Fact of Christianity. By Rev. 
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** This valuable little volume will do much to assist in their 
study of this important subject those who may not have access 
to more elaborate works or leisure for the study of them. Itisa 
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Unsettled Questions Touching the Foundations of Christianity. 
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The Highest Critics vs. The Higher Critics. By Rev. L. W. 
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plain and pointed, and the argument critical and cumulative. 
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The Evidences of Christianity. By William Paley,D.D. Edited 
by Canon Birks. Introduction, Notes,and Supplement. .s2mo, 
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Ten Reasons Why I Believe the Bible is the Word of God. By 
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*,% See also Brookes, By-Paths, and Living Papers, 


Various Topics. 
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FAITH OHEALING, 


A Study of Faith Healing. By Alfred T. Schofield, M.D. 12mo, 
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Faith Healing. A Defence; or, the Lord our Healer. By Rev. 
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** His review of objections is ingenious, and is pursued in a 
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A Ministry of Healing; or, Miracles of Cures in all Ages. With 
History of the Doctrine from the Earliest Times. By Rev. A. J. 


Gordon, D.D. 12mo, paper, net. soc.; cloth, gilt top...... wis 25 
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The Wonders of Prayer. Enlarged Edition, Revised by 

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A compilation of well authenticated and wonderful answers 
to prayer, as narrated by George Muller, D. L. Moody, C. H. 
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Answered Prayer. A Manual for Recording Prayers and their 
Answers. By Rey, A. T. Pierson, D.D. 18mo, leather, net, .25 


LILL SL OLN SE LAT 


The Abiding Comforter. A Series of Bible Studies on the Person, 
the Presence, and the Power of the Holy Spirit. By Rev. E. A. 


StoneD.D.. xsemo; cloth255....0 eeceee eee °75 
Received Ye the Holy Ghost? By J. Wilbur Chapman, D.D. 
zsmo, ‘Mexible cloth sors. ssh acaniee s see ec dee 50 


Power From On High; Do we need it? What is it? Can we 
| getit? By Rev. B. Fay Mills. 16mo, Popular Vellum Series, .20 


Cheaper style, net;/z0c.+* per dozenia. ak, eee net, r.00 
The Divine Indwelling. By E. Woodward Brown. 12mo, 
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The Holy Spirit. By Rev. J. H. Brookes D.D. 18mo, paper, 
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Secret Power; or, The Secret of Success in Christian Life and 
Christian Work. By D.L. Moody. 12mo, paper, 30c.; cloth, .60 


Dm 


